The Qualitative Research Blog

Masters in metamorphosis

2011-05-27T12:40:00.006Z

What I do for a living was difficult for me to explain about 8 years ago even when I first started work. Over time one would have imagined clarity would have descended upon me and I would not have to fumble or think twice if asked that question. It has only gotten more complex (I wouldn't like to say worse) - thankfully this time...not just for me but for many others who I speak to :)

So here are the interesting bits

For a long time now, there isn't one single organization I have worked for. What started off as freelancing ended up as 'open' work arrangements where I would give only a part of my time to an organization sometimes working with 2 or even 3 of them at the same time ranging from market research to brand communication to retail design. Some days ago, I was called for an interview for a full time position in an advertising agency. Full time was the hitch though the recruitment consultant persuaded me...go ahead and meet them at least. What do you stand to lose anyway? To be honest I felt a little foolish going for a meeting knowing very well I would not be throwing away my existing work contracts. I enjoy the freedom and flexibility of working in diverse areas. I called a friend (a veteran ad professional) to ask her whether i could suggest to this agency the possibility of working as consultant...would it sound too outlandish ? Her response took me by surprise. Are you kidding me she said, who in this day and age commits all their time to one organization! Now I know that might not be a universal truth but it is becoming more and more prevalent. She then went on to cite the instance of another advertising professional she knew who worked at two competing ad agencies at the same time and they both hired him knowing very well he worked with a competitor. On his part he had to tread the confidentiality line cautiously. But that is not an impossibility.

A conversation with another colleague whose career graph has moved from teaching to copy writing to information design on social media and writing for children, was about how as professionals it is imperative today that we invent and reinvent ourselves, else start feeling obsolete. Gone are the days when people specialized in one core skill and stayed with it for their lifetime.

A few others I know mention that whenever they need to switch jobs it is close to impossible to seek help from a recruitment consultant since those consultants who are used to understanding the water-tight world of neatly chalked out job definitions very often do not understand what kind of a job role to fit them into and therefore end up randomly matching key words and sending them leads which do not make any sense

Some one else (an enterprising digital marketing consultant) saw this as an opportunity to offer resource management as a supplementary skill to his clients. He has been with the industry long enough to understand the kind of people that would best fit the requirements of this industry. Digital marketing being a relatively new area, there is little chance for anyone to find people with a specific degree or academic lineage that would be a straight fit. Brand planning is another such specialization I am told. It is a decade old practice in many agencies in India. In the initial days client servicing guys who understood the agency business well graduated to brand planning.With the field maturing and competition intensifying there is a need to hire 'specialists'. Ironically the specialist could come from (not advertising but) a related industry -brand communication or research / consumer insight agencies.

So what is all this leading to...

Going forward we may see open organizations - lose collaborations between working professionals who come together for a project.

Open job definitions - I have already seen this happening in some organizations which are lean and each employee plays more than one role. So the brand planner also doubles up as a copy-right expert and the office boy also offers basic IT support. And all this is possible made due to the sheer appetite to learn

Maybe more 'generalizations' rather than 'specializations' in academic programs. Today's newspaper carried an advert of a private university in Gujrat offering a program in liberal studies - a choice based learning approach where one could chose to study music and economics as electives perhaps. How one applies these unique skills to earn a livelihood would be a challenge but an interesting one at that !

And on a more fundamental level - it would allow us to define our own benchmarks, boundaries of competition and metrics of success. After all how many people do you know who combine knowledge about consumer insights and the subconscious mind with maybe retail design? :)

Indian Ingenuity, jugaad and customer support

2010-11-02T10:23:00.006Z

Indian Ingenuity or 'jugaad' as it is locally known is now a globally accepted term and philosophy. It features in the HBR and the management gurus and media love discussing at lenght whether the jugaad mindset is helping India & indians grow economically or does this mindset reinforce the constraints that first led to the birth of this way of working and therefore keep us living in compromised situations. Just google 'jugaad' and 'indian ingenuity' to follow the intellectual discourse on the subject

It is difficult to define since it encompasses the creation of alternatives, substitutes, improvisations and make-dos that is spurred by a native inventiveness which is characteristic of a culture steeped in scarcity and survival. It has inspired the creation of hybrid vehicles used as transport in Indian villages to the corner stores on the street making the pc / mobile technology more accessible to masses at a fraction of a cost to the local electrical making a contraption that functions as a home appliance and what have you!

Here is one more such jugaad solution that I encountered.

I had to get my Braun hand blender fixed. Turns out that Braun does not have an authorized serviced network in India. A local vendor promised to fix it for me and actually did, although getting spare parts for Braun products is not that simple.

The man imports a few pieces of Braun's original appliances. He then dismantles them completely. And sells it piece by piece. If I need a plastic joinery for my blender he would happily replace it with a new one and charge me a small premium for that part. Though I know I am being over-charged I pay it gladly. Why? I would have had to otherwise junk my machine entirely. He benefits since the sum of his parts make up more than the whole. Reverse synergy in action here :) It is a win-win situation for both of us.

I can bet my last buck that if i requested / expected such help from a branded service shop - it would be years before they would relent and offer anything close to this. Though I wonder why?

Do brands become less agile...less responsive as they grow?

As for the debate - yes the jugaad solution did prevent me from junking my old appliance and getting a new one. And an economist might argue that my truncated spending cycle does not do much good to the economic growth that gets spurred by consumer spending. Blah!

jugaad, Indian ingenuity, Braun, Culture and Branding,

Bathroom Blogfest 2010 : And finally airlines with Gender specific loos

2010-11-02T10:08:00.004Z

Nearly fives years back I had asked a rhetorical question here on my blog.

Why don’t they have gender specific restrooms on board? If its not enough that there is such a paucity of space in the restrooms – the thought about & experience of using the unisex restrooms makes me want to never get on an aircraft again. I am sure the information on the number of male / female passengers is captured while people are boarding and it’s possible to allocate 1 or more of the restrooms exclusively for women depending on the traffic

I was delighted to find that someone...somewhere is listening. Even it is just a few...airlines have started this trend.

A reuter's press release confirmed that - Women flying Japan's All Nippon Airways will have a toilet all to themselves from next month, with the airline designating one restroom on most international routes as female-only. South Korea's Korean Air has been offering similar facilities.

Even a small change like that can make such a big difference to a person's experience with & how one feels about a brand.

Way to go ANA !

ladiesroom, All Nippon Airways,

Bathroom Blogfest 2010: On bathrooms stuck in the 60's and unrealistic advertising

2010-11-02T09:54:00.010Z

For the past five years a group of bloggers - experts in marketing, customer experience and service, public relations, library sciences, museums, home & interior design, life, retail, flooring and healthcare - have been blogging about what could improve the overall bathroom experience for end users. What started as a group of 10 – 12 bloggers has this year expanded to 40. This blog fest has proved to be a real effective medium for accessing a diverse set of views on a subject in a short span of time. The content is rich with people posting pictures and their experiences around great looking washrooms and what is desirable. It happens every year in the last week of Oct. I am late in posting this – though have been contributing for the last 4 years and did not have the heart to break the chain J

“This year’s theme “Stuck in the 60s?” is inspired by Mad Men, the show that has captured the imaginations of many for its portrayal of life in the 60s when social and cultural taboos meant that many critical aspects of life – like bathrooms – were ignored, glossed over and treated dreadfully,” said Christine B. Whittemore, who manages the Bathroom Blogfest. “The result is that end users suffered. By calling attention to modern day instances that are “Stuck in the 60s?”, we can reinforce the value associated with being more responsive to the end user experience.

But what happens if for the end user – life is really still stuck in the 60s? For a lot of people living in India and South-east Asia, the reality is that their washrooms still have stone / cemented surfaces (as opposed to tiles). The sanitary wear is not always in ceramic…it could stone or some toughened fiber like material on which hard water creates white stains / patches. For a lot of these houses bathrooms are not about squeaky clean shiny surfaces or fresh fragrances. Stains and odors are a reality they live with and bathrooms are forgotten areas of the house – forgotten by everyone else except the woman of the house whose job it is to maintain the minimum standards of hygiene.

This is a fairly large segment of the market that currently is out of the loop of branded bathroom cleaners. They use harsh local products like chemicals to get rid of tough stains and the acrid smelling bleach to kill every other odor in their toilets. For a marketer this is a fairly attractive untapped marketing opportunity.

Where does the problem lie?

Current communication through advertising and to a certain extent even current product formulations do not acknowledge and address this reality. Adverts generally show aesthetically done up, fragrant smelling, spa-like, large bathrooms on which a mere spray and wipe ritual by the lady of the house and the magic of the product would restore it to its former pristine state. Consumers don’t buy this story and buy their product. For starters their bathrooms do not look like the one in the adverts. No matter how of the magic formula is poured – a dark cemented surface is not likely to transform into something else. For the few who even try such product – do not find much evidence of the product working. The ads talk about ‘shine’ as evidence or ‘germ kill’. Both these markers for product performance are difficult to believe. ‘Shine’ is an intrinsic property of certain surfaces and absent in others. Products cannot greatly alter this condition. ‘Germs’ are not visible. In the absence of a visible code for germs - consumers understand ‘germs’ in terms of ‘bad odor’. If a bleach like product neutralizes all odors – germs have been effectively killed. What is the need for a specialized branded cleaner then?

For a long time we have been given to believe – that advertising cannot be realistic. Things will only sell if advertising is aspirational. Aspirational yes…but how much is the question?

Food for thought: What is the brand’s outlay on advertising vis-à-vis product development? No amount of glib talk can compensate for a poor / irrelevant product.

You will find other bloggers contributing to the blogfest this year in the list below

Blogger	Blog Name	Blog URL
Susan Abbott	Customer Experience Crossroads	http://www.customercrossroads.com/customercrossroads/
Paul Anater	Kitchen and Residential Design	http://www.KitchenAndResidentialDesign.com
Shannon Bilby	Big Bob's Outlet	http://blog.bigbobsoutlet.com/
Shannon Bilby	Carpets N More Blog	http://blog.carpetsnmore.com/
Shannon Bilby	Dolphin Carpet Blog	http://blog.dolphincarpet.com/
Shannon Bilby	From The Floors Up	http://fromthefloorsup.com/
Shannon Bilby	My Big Bob's Blog	http://blog.mybigbobs.com/
Toby Bloomberg	Diva Marketing	http://bloombergmarketing.blogs.com/bloomberg_marketing/
Laurence Borel	Blog Till You Drop	http://www.laurenceborel.com/
Bill Buyok	Avente Tile Talk Blog	http://tiletalk.blogspot.com/
Jeanne Byington	The Importance of Earnest Service	http://blog.jmbyington.com/
Becky Carroll	Customers Rock!	http://customersrock.net/
Marianna Chapman	Results Revolution	http://www.resultsrevolution.com
Katie Clark	Practial Katie	http://practicalkatie.blogspot.com/
Nora DePalma	American Standard's Professor Toilet	http://www.professortoilet.com/
Nora DePalma	O'Reilly DePalma: The Blog	http://www.oreilly-depalma.com/blog/
Leigh Durst	LivePath Experience Architect Weblog	http://livepath.blogspot.com/
Valerie Fritz	The AwarepointBlog	http://www.awarepointblog.com/
Iris Garrott	Checking In and Checking Out	http://circulating.wordpress.com/
Tish Grier	The Constant Observer	http://spap-oop.blogspot.com
Renee LeCroy	Your Fifth Wall	http://yourfifthwall.com/
Joseph Michelli	Dr. Joseph Michelli's Blog	www.josephmichelli.com/blog
Veronika Miller	Modenus Blog	http://www.modenus.com/blog
Arpi Nalbandian	TILE Magazine Editor Blog	http://www.tilemagonline.com/Articles/Blog_Nalbandian
Maria Palma	People 2 People Service	http://www.people2peopleservice.com/
Reshma Bachwani Paritosh	The Qualitative Research Blog	http://www.onqualitativeresearch.blogspot.com/
David Polinchock	Polinchock's Ponderings	http://blog.polinchock.com/
Victoria Redshaw & Shelley Pond	Scarlet Opus Trends Blog	http://trendsblog.co.uk/
David Reich	My 2 Cents	http://reichcomm.typepad.com/my_weblog/
Sandy Renshaw	Around Des Moines	http://www.arounddesmoines.com/
Sandy Renshaw	Purple Wren	http://www.purplewren.com/
Bethany Richmond	Carpet and Rug Institute Blog	http://www.carpet-and-rug-institute-blog.com/
Bruce Sanders	RIMtailing Blog	http://rimtailing.blogspot.com/
Steve Tokar	Please Be Seated	http://stevetokar.wordpress.com/
Carolyn Townes	Becoming a Woman of Purpose	http://spiritwomen.blogspot.com/
Stephanie Weaver	Experienceology	http://experienceology.blogspot.com/
Christine B. Whittemore	Flooring The Consumer	http://flooringtheconsumer.blogspot.com/
Christine B. Whittemore	Simple Marketing Blog	http://www.simplemarketingblog.com/
Christine & Ted Whittemore	Smoke Rise & Kinnelon Blog	http://smokerise-nj.blogspot.com/
Christine B. Whittemore	The Carpetology Blog	http://carpetology.blogspot.com/
Linda Wright	LindaLoo Build Business With Better Bathrooms	http://lindaloo.com/

ladiesroom,

New 'News'

2010-03-27T11:36:00.005Z

A while ago I was doing a piece of research for the BBC when I started paying closer attention to how much news format / content has changed in India in the last few years.

I've been witness to the change everyday - from the predictable Doordarshan 9 o'clock news - to the first glimpses of how slick / interesting private new channel feed could get through 'The world this week' - to engaging journalism of the early days when everything in the newly liberalized India was opening up and along came with it the influx of the first few private news channels - to splitting up of the NDTV team into splinter channels, the fight for TRPs and sensational journalism - to its current avataar where the content bears little resemblance to what we once knew of news. And so, had not thought about the extent things have changed, until recently.

During the research discussions people's reactions ranged from nostalgia about the older days to outrage at the trash that is thrown at our face and sometimes humor. Since we were benchmarking to BBC the transition from 'news' to 'new news' seemed quite stark. A few interesting snippets -

We have seen a general 'dumbing down' - instead of talking about the Prime Minister's outlook on the economy, news channels cover his hospital visits
News anchors - instead of moderating discussions, inviting views - dominate discussions, out-shout panellists. Welcome to the world of high decibel news content.
There is day-to-day reportage on celebrities, their whereabouts, who fought with who. As if that was not enough, even the ups and downs of Reality TV shows are regularly covered.
There is even something called 'fake / made up' news :) - tune into to India TV that feeds you with breaking news stories like 'end of the world in year 20xx, gateway to heaven' - I am yet to make up my mind whether to call it news or entertainment or the workings of some lunatic mind.
Most news programing now have regular ad breaks. Recently, I happened to catch Vinod Dua anchoring a news show and leaving the audience with his favourite bollywood track to listen to - bang in the middle of news!

This conversation between a colleague and his son sums it up quite well...

Colleague - trying to catch up with the happenings of the day, Son - Papa what is this that you are watching. Colleague- This is the news beta. They show you what is happening in the world
Son - Then why are they fighting and shouting so much?

The discounted customer experience - Bathroom Blogfest 2009

2009-10-29T13:03:00.006Z

The bathroom blogfest started a couple of years ago with - a bunch of global women bloggers narrating their good…bad…and ugly experiences around restrooms.

The theme this year is a bit more inclusive - ‘Flushing the Recession and Plunging into Forgotten Spaces.’

There is not much more I could add around the bathroom customer experience. I have not been actively following that category in my research work nor has the public restroom facilities in India changed a great deal in the last couple of years.

Flushing the Recession...did bring to mind customer experience of a different kind. Earlier in the year when most retail brands had seen a steep drop in sales – the reaction was to announce large discount sales to get back the foot-falls. Their game plan worked and people did rush back. Though the experience at most stores was disappointing to say the least.

All I could remember of my visits to retail outlets during that phase was – brands being reduced to an untidy heap of merchandise…one had to really sift through the pile to get something that matched one’s size or taste. Sales staff were either missing or chatting way in corners and worst of all the discounts were far from attractive. Trial rooms were cramped, with disheveled clothes strewn around the place. And the experience was consistent across brands – whether one stepped into global brand outlet like UCB / Levis or a local brand outlet – it all felt the same. It did really feel like a ‘forgotten space!’ Did sales pick up? I don’t know thought I doubt it. However what such an experience does – is dilute the experience / image that a ‘brand’ creates for a long time to come.

A brand that stood out at that time was one that offered a consistent in-store experience to what it would offer on a ‘non-discount’ day – well stocked, well organized merchandise, courteous...helpful staff, the trial room was spacious, tidy and pleasant.

Brand owners often think that customers never fail to notice a discount in price…what they forget is - the customer will also never fail to notice a discounted experience.

Participating bloggers for the Bathroom Blogfest ’09 include:

• Susan Abbott at Customer Experience Crossroads
• Shannon Bilby at From the Floors Up
• Shannon Bilby and Brad Millner at My Big Bob’s Blog
• Jeanne Byington at The Importance of Earnest Service
• Becky Carroll at Customers Rock!
• Leslie Clagett at KB Culture
• Katie Clark at Practical Katie
• Iris Shreve Garrott at Checking In and Checking Out
• Julie at Julie’s Cleaning Secrets Blog
• Marianna Hayes at Results Revolution
• Maria Palma at People To People Service
• Professor Toilet at Professor Toilet’s Blog
• David Reich at My 2 Cents
• Bethany Richmond at The Carpet and Rug Institute Blog
• Carolyn Townes at Becoming a Woman of Purpose
• Stephanie Weaver at Experienceology
• C.B. Whittemore at Flooring The Consumer and Simple Marketing Blog
• Linda Wright at Lindaloo.com: Build Better Business with Better Bathrooms

Links to the Bathroom Blogfest’s official Blog and Facebook Fan page

#ladiesroom09

The impact of mergers on Qual Research : Bricolage to standardisation

2009-07-02T04:38:00.002Z

Earlier this year Martin Sorrell won his latest battle when the merger was announced between TNS and RI, an event that seemed to indicate a growing trend: the creation of market research behemoths.

The reason cited for the merger was, as always, to strengthen the value of the offering to the client. But is there a different truth lurking somewhere beneath the surface? The general consensus seems to be that an industry-wide movement towards global research conglomerates will force the smaller merged companies to conform to 'templatisation'. The underlying assumption is that less researcher time spent on customisation translates to greater ROI on projects. It's a tempting assumption – and it could work with quant research – but the qual business plays by a different set of rules.

The effect of restructuring

Susan Abbott, of Canada-based Abbott Research & Consulting, believes that insights from qualitative projects result from the customised research designs and wisdom of senior researchers when interpreting studies. In larger firms, however, these same people would typically be responsible for managing people and bringing in business, not interpretation or analysis.

Sadly, this often prompts a form of 'straight jacketing'. The impetus to look beyond the available toolkit flags. In fact, individuality is discouraged – possibly one reason why clients opt out and go to smaller agencies where thinking out of the box is possible. Susan Saurage-Altenloh, of Saurage Research in the US, confirms this thinking. She believes that, as firms merge, there are economies of scale, but some of the spunky creative abilities and ensuing client benefits get flattened out.

History tells us what we might expect in the future. A senior researcher in France recalls that the merger of Insight, then one of the most sophisticated French qual agencies, with European quant giant IPSOS, prompted the exodus of over 10 research directors. And today? It could be argued that Insight's creative 'savoir-faire' is but a shadow of former days.

Dina Mehta, from Mosoci India, quit one research firm soon after it switched from a bricolage-like approach to one that was more structured, large scale, focusing on quantity rather than quality. With the need for quick turnaround times and high volumes, she found herself behaving more like an administrator chasing targets than a researcher.

Another research consultant, Charukesi Ramadorai, points to what may be the first signs of a more serious issue – that of commoditising the business. Since, within large agencies, a tailored approach is discouraged she observes that those 'brand qualities' differentiating the qual service offering are becoming more and more diffused. Barring projects that involved the use of copyrighted models, which inherently have some degree of differentiation to offer, there is little difference in the way most large agencies work.

Virginia Valentine in her MRS 2001 conference paper 'Repositioning Research: A New MR Language Model' highlighted how the MR discourse currently encodes the old imagery of a researcher as backroom technician while consumption has changed and demands that the researcher takes on the role of a strategic thinker.

The TNS/RI press release talks – on the face of it – about increased capabilities. It mentions 'that both TNS & RI will join forces and use their strength, resources and talent to deliver value to their clients.

The new company will be either the largest or second largest in every major research market giving them 'on the ground' ability to deliver industry knowledge and global protocols to clients.'

But let's take a step back and view this statement in the context of Virginia Valentine's framework for analysing the MR discourse. It might suggest that creating a large, stable information fortress could end up taking the research business in a direction that is not conducive to fostering a strategic forward thinking approach to research.

It could also mean taking qualitative research away from the metaphor model (a nimble, entrepreneurial environment that encourages intuition, creativity) and towards the metonymy model (a stable, predictable environment that emphasises conformance and process led endeavour).

How will qual survive?

Spinach's Helen Taylor observes that, for every big company merger or acquisition, a new crop of small boutique agencies spring up. While some continue to remain small and personality-led, others develop and grow into mid-sized agencies. So, overall, the qual market always offers a choice for research buyers.

Clients entrust large agencies with global projects and regular brand work since many of these organisations have historically conducted research for certain brands. N. Muthukumaran, from The Nielsen Company in India, points out that global outfits also, apart from offering logistical advantages when managing international projects, have access to nuances of what works well in which culture, which enhances a researcher's sensitivity. This is a competitive advantage that some of these large agencies may lose out on in the days to come, thanks to some of the new kids on the block.

The recent past has seen some global niche agencies in the qualitative space. They are nimble yet global, with the marketing focus that comes with multidisciplinary talent – a bunch of passionate individuals who love their craft.

Yet somewhere the line between a boutique agency and a large full service agency is blurring. In the ultimate analysis, it is not so much the size and reach of an organisation that by itself hampers or nurtures the spirit of qualitative research as its culture and orientation to business.

*Featured in InBrief May-June 2009

Digital Media – is destination the over-riding decision?

2009-05-15T09:25:00.005Z

Your brand needs a digital media presence. That is the new medium. That is what people read, watch, where the new gen consumers hangout these days. If you don’t have a Facebook page and don’t send tweets to your 340 friends or consumers, then you must surely be from another planet. Everyone including my grandfather is on facebook…aren’t you?

Some such spiel by a digital media ‘expert’ typically leads to a flight (I don’t how to get on to this social media space and so I’ll just stand back and watch) or fight (let me find out the most popular social media tool and create a page there) response.

Lately, the utterly butterly delicious Amul decided to get itself a digital media presence and how? Through Second Life!

There was buzz around Second Life a few years ago and predictions how half the world is going to have a second life id by 2019 but then one day the buzz waned. Second Life expected me to download an application once I created an account and buy linden dollars. I wanted to do neither. Besides I didn’t see much sense in creating and avatar and hanging around second life.

It is surprising then that Amul’s foray into digital media ‘to be seen where it mattered’ happened via Second Life. Amul for sure has a digital presence thanks to that, though how it would enhance the brand’s visibility is a question I grapple with.

Its topical witty campaigns are so popular that I have often come across those campaigns do several rounds of my mailbox. And like a good sitcom each time I see them, I enjoy them. Converting these hoardings to virals or creating virals afresh would have been a natural extension of making the brand visible in the digital world. Refreshing their site, bringing it to date, making it more interactive with users would have made a more meaningful connect with people than a presence on Second Life. There is a lot more that can be done with their orkut page and blog which currently only has information on the Amul Vidyashree Awards – nothing more!

Rather than asking yourself WHERE I need to be in the digital media space, what makes sense to me is to ask yourself WHAT I wish to do while I’m there and then work the digital media strategy backwards from that point.

social media brands, Amul, Amul and second life

Blog URL Update

2009-05-11T07:05:00.006Z

The blog is back on its parent host - blogger

Please note the updated URL

http://onqualitativeresearch.blogspot.com/

For feeds click here
cheers :)

Two is company, three is …?

2009-04-07T06:18:00.006Z

A while ago I got thinking about the number three. It’s recurring occurrence in myths and symbols.

Why do/es

The genie grant you three wishes?
A winner’s podium have three places?
Hinduism and Christianity both have a holy trinity?
Japanese mythology have three monkeys?
Freud talk about three ego states – id, ego and super ego?
Fairytales have three little pigs, Goldie locks and the three bears?
And time get divided into three: past, present and future?

When I turned my attention to the television – I came across brands that promised three benefits. A new shampoo brand that mentions three benefits - Nourishment, Protection and Hydration.

Aqua Fresh toothpaste with its iconic three stripes signifying protection, cavity fighting and fresh breath

Tea brands that played around with strength, colour and aroma highlighting one or the other.

Of course there are products with fewer or more benefits though I have deliberately cited examples with 3 to try and see if there is any more meaning to it. Do they talk about three just because one is too little and two still not good enough? By that logic it could be 4 or 12 or any number of benefits that people could remember.

Then I realised: Three is the smallest number of co-ordinates required to enclose a geometrical space.

Two straight lines cannot enclose any space!

In this context therefore three = solid, real, substantial, complete.

In another context three represents the ‘middle ground’ between the binary extremes of black and white, of good and bad.

Life is not always about the extremes.

We are not happy with things that just have do-good benefits; we also want those products to make us feel-good. For instance, people had the option of a) having staple home cooked food that one did not always enjoy and b) feasting on the more alluring street / junk food that was not good for us and then there was c) Maggie noodle that gave people the third option – Taste Bhi Health Bhi. Similarly we understood cleanliness as being good and dirt as bad – again two extremes – until Surf Excel appeared on the scene occupying the middle ground by positioning Dirt as good.

In life we cannot always exclude the existence of a “grey “area - a 3rd option. Three then = balance, realism, the in between space.

So coming back to the question I started with – what do you equate three to?

brand communication, symbolism & number three,

Cross-posted on Chlog

Brands : Making a promise and keeping it too!

2009-03-09T09:52:00.005Z

Let’s play a guessing game…

We have an international youth brand

They say - they are committed to designing products and marketing programs that reflect creativity and the desire to constantly challenge the status quo

Their positioning - Celebrate Individuality in Sport and Life.

Their product line – well…let me give you a snapshot…

What some of their target consumers say about their products?

“I don’t wear their clothes because at my age I want to wear clothes that reflect my identity. When I walk into their store I see very few cuts, style variations…the only variation is the colour…it reminds me of uniform”
“I don’t think they’ve changed their style in the last 10 years…do they follow any fashion trends…year after year I see the same stuff”
Still haven’t guessed?

Some years back they rolled out a new global advertising campaign -- "I Am What I Am" celebrating the individuality they stand for!

A press release that I read said they flawlessly integrated the message of "I Am What I Am" through an aggressive and consolidated marketing plan which includes - cinema, TVC, billboard advertising, strong retail presence, SMS and Internet activation and public relations. Why didn’t this extend to their product line I wonder?

They wanted to make a connect with the youth through contemporary icons, athletes who appeared in this campaign. It was intended to capture the minds of the youth by giving them a voice for self- expression and therefore become relevant and inspiring to them.

Did the campaign work in encouraging youth to embrace their individuality by identifying with their sports heroes…perhaps.

Did it inspire more young people to go to their store and buy their products? I guess not until their products start to reflect the individualistic streak that their campaigns have talked about

If branding = promise keeping…then it should reflect in everything that the brand says or does. Everything!

Last year they launched…a ra nge of clothes that reflect a confluence of sport and style reflecting the edginess that youth seek.

Now… this looks more like - keeping the promise that they made.

brand alignment, Reebok, Reebok Classics,

Cross-posted on Chlog

Lost amidst a 1000 windows!

2009-02-20T10:36:00.002Z

We live in strange times…

We sms while dining…eat while watching tv…read, check mail while in a meeting…catch up with friends on chat while at work …take our cell phone with us to sleep…some of us even take it to shower!

Constantly flitting between open windows on the computer…we perennially scan the environment around us so as to no miss anything. Linda Stone calls it a state of ‘continuous partial attention’

There is suddenly so much information all around and so much to catch up with that it leaves one feeling challenged. The info-glut creates a sense of info-guilt…a constant feeling that there is so much out there that I don’t know – books I haven’t read, movies I haven’t seen and therefore the race against time to catch up with things leaving us hurried and restless.

We are so busy keeping tabs on everything that we find it difficult to focus on anything for too long. Shortening attention spans would impact what kind of information and how much we will be able to absorb. We’ve started enjoying T-20 as opposed to test matches, reading blog posts, microblogs and tweets instead of thick tomes. The bytes are reducing to as much as we can chew. At a movie theatre after a standard 2.5 hour movie I overheard people say that movies are becoming too long these days…who has the patience? Short film may not seem like such an offbeat format in the future.

A few days back I was at the Kala Ghoda Festival. A crowd of people waited patiently around a stage waiting for a classical dancer to appear and perform. Someone introduced her with what seemed like a never-ending list of her credentials…checked sound…and finally she arrived. Instead of performing…she decided to lecture the audience for a few minutes…and disappeared again back stage… and another round of sound testing – by which time I had lost patience and moved away from the stage to a more alluring part of the festival buzzing with activity. Had I paid to watch the performance I would have been mentally prepared to spend 2 hours of my time dedicated to this activity but at the festival I was out for a quick round of fun. More over the environment around has way too much stimulus to have me standing there firmly by the stage.

Many a time brands expect us to do just that…marketers assume that people would focus on and be wowed by what their brand is saying or doing or selling. In the hope of grabbing attention, the claims made by some brands mirror this hurry sickness that consumer’s are gripped by. Personal care products till a few years back promised visible results after many weeks / months of continued product usage. Then came Ponds that promised an anti-ageing miracle in just 7 days. As if that was not miracle enough Pantene now assures you that their product will strip your hair off 3 months of damage (and god knows what else) in 3 minutes! At this rate I can’t imagine what the next advertiser will say to try and sell his product…what could be faster than 3 minutes – just think of my brand and you’ll turn beautiful maybe!

Instead of shouting louder and faster brands that help consumers manage interruption will be valued. One that caught my attention was UrgeMe. Once I set a reminder on their site they send me a email telling me You are supposed to call xyz for shopper info before 13-Feb-2009.Don’t forget to do it.

And now…in the interest of not grabbing more of your attention…I’ll let you go this time. Do come back for more :)

Cross-posted at - http://chlog.chlorophyll.in/

brand and culture, continuous partial attention

The Culture of Service

2008-12-30T10:08:00.002Z

Hullo! Its been awfully long and hope some of you are still here :)

Sometime back an acquaintance asked me to put together my thoughts on 'service'...what customers expect...what retailers do, don't do and perhaps should do. I was reminded of some of the strange...contrasting experiences I've had.

I remembered how I felt when I first visited UK. I had walked into a Candy store late one evening. I was the only one at the shop apart from two girls who managed the store. They noticed me getting in but did not say much…nor crowd around me as I browsed through what the store had to offer. At first it felt weird…perhaps I was even a little offended when I thought they did not acknowledge my presence there. They asked me the mandatory ‘are you ok…there?’ I gave them a confused nod. I browsed for a few minutes and walked out. It took me a few more visits to realize how liberating this experience was.

Contrasting this with my experience in India – where the minute I set foot in a shop…I expect to be followed around…asked questions repeatedly about what I want…and if nothing else watched by the sales staff from close quarters. This happens at restaurants too where if you are not surrounded by waiters standing barely two steps away from your table all huddled up…your conversation is constantly interrupted by waiters coming and re-filling your glass of water the minute you’ve had a sip from it.

Perhaps this ‘over servicing’ attitude is rooted in our cultural beliefs to treat ‘Guests as God’ and thus - Atithi Devo Bhav. Or may be it originated from a cautious mindset – with only a miniscule number of shops having CCTV cameras or any surveillance system, ‘following the consumer’ must have seemed like the safest bet to prevent pilferage. Over the years we became accustomed to being watch, followed, questioned, interrupted - though with more people traveling across the world…this is changing.

Nevertheless the notion of what good service means is therefore largely context and culture specific therefore.

Kingfisher airline was able to turn this around positively by delivering some of the little things that made a service difference. They refer to their customers as not just passengers but as guests, have someone escort you with your luggage as soon as you arrive at the airport right up to the check in terminal. In fact Kingfisher Red was the first low cost airline to serve water (and now even food) on board, when competitors were charging for it. Being charged for water does not just translate to a monetary cost. The annoyance value it brings with it and the associated ill will a brand earns is far more. During consumer research we often heard people complain about how even when a stranger shows up at the door he is not sent away way without being offered water – and to think of it that ‘charge us for water’…their tone almost suggested that it was blasphemous!
In fact I’ve heard my mother say that - offering a thirsty person water to drink is like doing a good deed.

Whether you are a low frill brand whose offering is based on giving the consumer a bare minimum experience or a regular brand trying to survive recessionary times and cutting down on service … it cannot be a blanket cutting down the service experience - the trick would be in figuring out – what goes and what stays.

Boring is Normal….

2007-11-03T14:13:00.001Z

A couple of weeks ago, in response to a call from a friend who asked me how I am doing…my reply was ‘I am just so bored’. That would have been a normal response had I been doing nothing for days preceding that conversation though in fact things were quite the contrary. My hands were more than full with work…work that I most often enjoy doing…except at that time it did not seem terribly interesting. Her response…

Do you think we are all a little too bored…too often these days? Whenever I talk to any of my friends, boredom somehow crops up in every conversation

We spoke at length about boredom that day…

When I was in my teens 7 up had a TVC on air featuring Fido Dido (with his spiked hair and triangular head ) stood for all that was ‘cool’ when he proclaimed…’normal is boring’…a value that kids identified with those days. Not that the teens today would find normal any less boring - though the converse of this statement has become so true of their lives too.

Is ‘being bored’ reflective of times we live in. There was relatively less restlessness and more contentment amongst people of an older generation. Are we as a generation constantly craving excitement, thrill, adventure or all the rush that comes up with new experiences? My feeling is the more we expose ourselves to exciting stimuli …the shorter is the span of excitement…the quicker the onset of boredom.

So, if ‘engaging in a new activity’ kept me interested for a few months in the past…today it may keep my interest sustained for a few weeks. Perhaps it stems from too much stimuli we are exposed to….a feeling of wanting to do too much…in too little time. My friend labeled it the ‘super human syndrome’ – and talked about how even professionally – we are not content with focusing on one narrow area of work…the more we read about related / peripheral areas the greater is the restlessness to learn and excel at those. One fights to reach the top…and when one has, instead of thinking about & enjoying that feeling of achievement, we fix our attention to the next peak…and the next peak…

If this is a latent feeling amongst people today…then brands / products that keep reinventing themselves will continue to remain exciting.

Rashmi Bansal (editor of JAM – a popular youth magazine in India) cites Mobile phones as an example of a category that has done just that

The mobile phone, has no problem invading ‘other’ territory and annexing it. Going by conventional wisdom, phone companies should have stopped at improving voice clarity and enhancing looks. But they never thought of themselves as merely a phone. Instead of waiting for someone to express the desire for a service called SMS or a camera embedded into a phone, someone just went ahead and invented it. Part of the reason the mobile maintains its cool is the scorching pace the industry has set in terms of innovation….The term ‘mobile’ happens to be associated with a technological device, but ‘mobility’ lies at the core of what it means to be young.

On bathrooms and babycare rooms...Bathroom blogfest 2007

2007-11-02T04:29:00.000Z

I'm a little late in joining the ladies in the loo this year. The bathroom blog fest which Susan and Stephanie initiated last year, has been on this week. Its about a group of women bloggers around the world writing about how customer experiences can be improved around restrooms.

Last year, since there was not too much i could recall about positive restroom experiences in India, I had written about the restrooms at the Taj Mahal Hotel in Bombay and how those were one of the very few restrooms i had visited where one would not feel like pinching one's nose and running out at the earliest. We have come a long way from those days. For starters as a woman I can actually 'think' of finding a decent restroom in a public place - Malls have made life easier on that front. Airports are being revamped and so are the loos. Its a not unusual anymore to come across restrooms that are not only clean, but also adequate in their
supplies.

Of all the restrooms I've visited in the recent past - there has been one that stands out as the best I have seen here. I found it at a mall in Bombay that has is known for its design that matches international standards. What stood out there was - the wash basin designed for kids. Though this is becoming common in restrooms abroad - it is not something one would spot easily here and certainly reflective of the fact that people have started paying more attention to designing restrooms !

The other thing i came across at this mall - was a bright cheerful place -called the baby care room ! Most places have a small section of the women's restroom dedicated for this purpose though I have often wondered how uncomfortable it would be for women who sit in a busy restroom and attend to their babies. Besides comfortable seating, a baby changing table - this room had toys that older kids could play with and the cushions on the couch were adorable. This space felt like something that was in between what we have seen and know of a typical baby changing areas and the kids play area that one often finds at supermarkets.

On a related note...(though not specific to the Indian context) - I came across a news letter that talked about emerging consumer typologies....one of which they labeled 'denim dads' and described this creature as

The modern stay-at-home dad is admired for seeking work-life balance. He spends a good chunk of his day online, gleaning parenting tips off Slowlane.com and posting his own. He shares musical tastes with his kids, and appreciates the changing tables in the men’s room at Home Depot.

Now...how many businesses would even think of having a baby changing area in the men's room...you tell me.

For more visit the bathroomblogfest blog

customer experience, bathroom blogfest, ladiesrooms

Lets Face it - is facebook the new buzzword in research circles?

2007-09-20T18:21:00.000Z

In the past couple of months I have encountered facebook –quite literally - wherever I have turned my face! I have seen it land up in my inbox as invites from friends, pop up in conversations with colleagues, featured on blog posts and finally yesterday I was sent an article on - what sites like face book and myspace mean for research?

In the midst of all this I caught on to the facebook bandwagon just to see what it was all about!

From the little time that I have spent on facebook here is what I’ve observed…

What are people there for?

Small conversations that may not be of any consequence. Things like Wassup with you? Saw ur pics…really liked them or Am off to SL…see you guys in a week.

Grant McCracken has a good post on this – How social networks work . He refers to these as ‘phatic conversations’

This is communication with little hard, informational content, but lots of emotional and social content. Phatic communications doesn't get much said, but it has social effects so powerful, it gets lots done

It seems like a place for dipping in and out rather than immersing oneself deeply. Immersing would involve investment of a lot more energy and time. Perhaps email / IM would be a relatively more immersive style of communication.

My conjecture is – that’s what keeps the regularity of such conversations going and these networks thriving. Dropping in a one-liner on someone’s facebook wall is far less taxing than sitting down to write an email which would warrant some thought, structure and purpose.

So what does it mean for research?

Research has traditionally warranted an immersive approach to conversations. Lengthy & purposeful.

Online research and the use of discussion boards brought some change to this format. That was all about recruiting a panel and having short, non immersive, regular conversations with a set of people. Those were still purposeful conversations

What then is the difference between using a social networking site for research as opposed to using a discussion forum? The way I see it is that participants who are part of a discussion board have been brought there / have come on their own volition - for a specific purpose vis-à-vis people on social networking sites who are already hanging around there.

The difference is also that people at social networking sites are hanging around there and primarily engaging in Phatic conversations – the everyday emotional fillers. The kind of conversations marketers / researchers are likely to have on such platforms would not be quite like that. Even if they are limited to the small non immersive format – they are still going to be purposeful and rational – and therefore not likely to fulfill the need that people are there for.

The closest example I could think of was lunch time conversations that I would have with my female colleagues about inane things, interjected by our boss who’d spoil the party by constantly talking something work related. Even if it was something as small as just throwing up a question – it would be met out with disgusting looks – since that was not the right time and place to talk about such affairs.

What could be the way of tapping into social networking sites?

To start with it would require being sensitive to why people are on that channel. Use it to create that initial contact – open up a channel of communication….perhaps even understanding the way a target group thinks. I would be weary of using the platform literally to conduct research

Your thoughts?

The pitfalls of active engagement amongst researchers

2007-09-19T16:52:00.000Z

For any qual researcher, having spent a few years in the profession, traveling becomes a very routine, mechanical exercise. So has been the case with me too. Getting in and out of airports has happened without much thought and the time available while flying has been spent going through the research material, if not catching up on the newspaper or sleep. Though a couple of days back, my experience was not quite like the usual.

My fatigue levels were so high thanks to bad work schedule, that it took me less than a minute to fall asleep from the time I boarded the flight. After 15 mins or so of deep sleep, I woke up, looked around and suddenly started feeling uneasy. I could not understand the feeling. I tried distracting myself by listening to my iPod, looking out of the window but nothing worked ! The dominant thought going through my mind was 'i need to get out of here'. The fact that it was not possible made it worse. Changing seats did not help either. I knew i was feeling claustrophobic!

I could attribute this feeling to an extremely cramped seat on a full aircraft. But more importantly I had spent the last couple of weeks researching in flight experiences amongst recent travelers. I had heard their apprehensions and fears around air travel over and over again and I think somewhere it struck a raw nerve.

In the past, I have read about counsellors / therapists developing negative reactions based on exposure to the client's unpleasant experiences. It is the result of active listening and a certain level of engagement and connection that the counsellor has with his client. The term used to describe this phenomenon is called 'vicarious traumatization'. It is usually characterized by a sudden/abrupt onset of symptoms in the therapist.

Though the probability of something similar happening amongst market research professionals is quite low, since we by and large deal with situations that are non-threatening or traumatic, the possibility is not altogether ruled out. A couple of years back I had spent an extensive amount of time interviewing people suffering from heart problems. Though that research did not conjure up any negative reactions in me, I remember one of the clients mention that she felt extremely disturbed hearing those accounts.

If you heard / experienced something like this happen to you or another researcher, I would like to hear from you. In the meanwhile I am hoping that by the time I need to take my next flight I get back into my robotic routine.

On why researchers do not appreciate 'the bigger picture'

2007-08-01T15:40:00.000Z

Last month, I wrote to a few people I know who are research buyers / consumers about what they expect from qualitative research and researchers. The one thing that I read repeatedly through many of those responses was that :

Researchers ought to have an understanding of the BIGGER PICTURE....an appreciation of what is the research being done for...how will it impact the client's business, what are they trying to achieve through the research, have an understanding of the dynamics that prevail in the industry that your client's operate in!

Flip the side of the coin and you find that client briefs (at least in India) tend to be skeletal at best and researchers lament about not being given the business backdrop against which the research is being planned...about not being given enough time or opportunity to discuss why the research is being done...or how the information gathered through research would be used...what sort of a decision would it help the client take ?

As a researcher I have felt frustrated at being told only half the story and sometimes not even that, though when I stepped back and thought about this issue, it seemed a little ironical - how, both the client and the researcher expect the same thing from each other - and yet many a time - there remains a large gap in communication and in the understanding of the BIGGER PICTURE.

At about the same time I was thinking about this, I happened to read Dr Sheila Keegan's article - Emerging to a brave new world.

Problem Definition - outside of the research process
Amongst other things, on page 3 she talks about one of the possible reasons for this gap -
That 'problem-definition' has not always been considered part of the research process. She goes on to say...

"From a researcher perspective, this area is fraught. Historically the client defines ‘the problem’. But, from a process consultant perspective, the client ‘often does not know what she is looking for and indeed should not really be expected to know’ (Schein, 1999). A change of expectations and working relationships between clients and researchers is needed before problem definition is widely accepted as a valid research area."

Vendor v/s Stakeholder
The other reality to this issue is that historically research agencies (unlike advertising agencies who have has always enjoyed the status of a stakeholder to a brand) have been looked at as mere vendors. With brand managers often been given new portfolios every few years and advertising agencies not always retaining their accounts, sometimes the research agency de facto becomes the reservoir of knowledge on a brand, yet suffers from the perception of being considered an 'outsider'

Implicit expectation from the researcher
My last hypothesis on this issue is that maybe...just maybe client's implicitly 'expect the researcher to have and active understanding of their business and therefore expect the researcher to ASK the questions that would clarify the business objectives relevant for research. The onus is then on the researcher to seek or clarify the research brief.

Whatever be the reason, there is no debate on the fact that it is imperative to the efficacy of research that the business context be understood - if as a researcher you are not handed down that knowledge on a platter, may be you just got to try harder.

Thanks to Christine, Neil, Poor_Planner, Naveen & Saurabh for contributing their thoughts on the subject !

Flavor of the season – treating research tools as buzzwords

2007-07-23T12:22:00.000Z

Creeping back into the routine of reading blogs, I chanced upon Mack’s post on - Walking the Social Media utility/hype line in which he talks about the ‘hot toy (tool) of the week’ in the social media space.

Much of what he says about new tools in the social media sphere is so true of qual research as well.

Still, if you listen to some in the blogosphere, it seems that the shine has worn off blogging. Blogs are quickly becoming yesterday's news, as some run off to play with shinier toys with names like 'Facebook', 'Pownce' and 'Spock'. That's because we geeks love to hype stuff (and bloggers know that if they are hyping the hot new toy, they'll get more traffic).

At one time it was (& perhaps still is) fashionable to talk about the death of focus groups in research circles and the shift from ‘conversation led’ research to ‘observation-led’ research. Ethnography dominated the scene for a while as the flavor of the season, and before we knew it the next big thing to happen in the world of Qual was online research. For a while there were talks about doing online focus group sessions in live chat-rooms, but before we could digest that fully we started talking about Blogs, wikis & setting up research panels on Second Life.

So where in lies the problem? The problem is not with keeping an open mind to methodological experiments. The problem is when research agencies especially small – new outfits start looking at these methodologies as their differentiating tools. Then the method over-rides any other consideration while planning a research and there is a blanket adoption for a pet method. Also since method becomes a differentiating factor, there is tendency to safeguard one’s method by putting it into a ‘black-box’ of sorts and presenting it to the world in the form of obscure, jargon-laden decks of power-point slides. Talking to another researcher-blogger, about this issue – we wondered how this was so not in keeping with the spirit of research – which is to throw light on issues and not obfuscate them under the guise of esoteric methodologies.

The other problem is that when follow these flash trends, we start treating research tools as ‘buzzwords’ – and we implicitly give these tools very little time to prove their worth in research. While they are in vogue, they are used indiscriminately and once they are out (possibly because of a few sub-optimal attempts at their use), nobody likes to talk about them. Very little is done to understand the right context for their use, or develop those into more robust approaches.

Mack’s concludes his post with the thought…

…..Believe the utility, not the hype. Jumping from one 'next big thing' to the next, simply leaves you with tired legs. Any new site/service/medium that offers real value will outlive the initial buzz.

And I second that!

'2.0' phenomenon in the real world

2007-06-13T13:14:00.000Z

glumbert.com - Supermarket 2.0

I'm sure this video is going to be doing the rounds of blogs for a few more days before we forget it. It was interesting to see the adaptation of the Web 2.0 concept in the real world. Going beyond the humor...many of those situations are workable

User comments on products...we see this happening in book stores where people who have read certain books, leave behind their comments for others to see.

Refreshing names for product variants...specially for low involvement products - 'quality time', 'tickling', 'better audio' - definitely catches more attention for ear buds than labelling those by size / softness

'Most popular' lists for a category ...reminds me of conversations i have overheard at the supermarket - people standing in the same aisle...looking at the same product category consult each other with suggestions on which brand to buy. Putting up a list of the fastest moving product variants / brands - could aid undecided shoppers zero-in on their purchase.

Predictive shopping...if you are buying Olive oil and pasta sauce - then you surely may be in need of dried pasta or oregano. Reminder tags placed where these products are stocked or pop up messages at the self service check outs is not too distant a possibility

RSS feeds from producers :)...this is already underway in a small way. I get a newsletter from 'Innocent' that tells me (amongst other things) - the new product variants that are on offer or are being planned.

Consumers who spend a great deal of time online and are already familiar with these concepts - would welcome seeing them in a 'real world' environment. For others - many of these ideas if implemented would mean an important step taken by a retailer to cut down the time and energy wasted on decision making in a cluttered environment.

I am going to mull on this for while...meanwhile if you have any thoughts on more adaptations of the 2.0 concept in the real world ...drop in a line.

supermarket 2.0, Web 2.0

Us v/s Him - Treatment of Outliers in Qualitative Research

2007-05-25T16:18:00.000Z

Are qualitative researchers - an inclusive lot - when it comes to the treatment of 'Outliers' or Do we banish the stray thought that we hear in research - as a maverick of sorts....'non representative' of the audience at large?

I read this post on Helen's blog some days ago, that set me thinking. Is there a subconscious bias prevalent within the discipline of qual research - a bias that favors the majority such that we lay greater emphasis on the thoughts expressed by 'many' vis-a-vis those expressed by a 'few'?

There are two reasons I could think of - about why this could happen

1. An external bias (from the client)

Even though in the recent past people have begun to appreciate the kind of information that qualitative research brings to the fore - it is still, often judged by the same yardstick as is used in case of quant research. How many times have we heard clients challenge findings by asking questions like...can you tell me how many people felt that way and the researcher diffidently admitting...well, there were just a few. To which one would hear...well then lets not give it too much importance and move on...Why does this emphasis on numbers infiltrate qualitative studies as well? Is that the only metric by which the worth of something can be judged ? What makes people so easily believe that the view point expressed by 'one' or a 'few' is a not a thought worth pursuing ?

I suppose repeated exposure to this way of thinking could lead researchers to start questioning their own beliefs such that the next time one is faced with a stray thought like that - rather than sounding shaky in front of a client, the researcher may nip it in the bud.

2. The other is the researcher's own bias

For long qual researchers have relied on the technique of 'story telling' to analyse and present findings. This helps the researcher see inter-connections in the data set such that she can look at the data holistically and understand the consumer's mind set i.e. where the consumer is coming from. It is also an effective way of communicating findings to the client - to narrate the findings in a sequence that ultimately builds up to the climax i.e. the insight !

But how does one treat a piece of data that does not fit in with one's beautifully crafted story? For a long time I would keep aside that piece of data, treat it as an exception - that is what I had initially learnt - filter it out - if it does not fit in with your story. It is much later I learnt that...If it does not fit in with your story....there must be a bloody good reason for it....so look at the data again...tap it gently from either side, sleep over it and you will eventually find out WHY!

I do not believe that every stray thought that one hears would definitely hide something significant under its skin. However, don't discard it or belittle it before giving it the attention it deserves. As Helen rightly puts it...

"An inconvenient little wobble in a research context, could mean something more significant in real life. I think we have a duty to report them. Carefully."

P.S - If you are used to thinking 'the more the merrier' - think again - more does not have to mean more number of people with single thought, it could also mean a few people with more number of thoughts

qualitative research analysis, outliers and qualitative research

Does a supermarket have to be super sized?

2007-05-24T14:49:00.000Z

In my last post on Retail in a transcultural environment I had talked about the ‘work arounds’ that consumers adopt to adapt to a foreign environment and I was to follow it up with a post that talked about these work arounds from the marketer’s / retailers perspective as retail grocery chains enter the Indian market

It’s been a long wait though I am glad I did, since having moved to India I have been able to compare my notes about what I saw of supermarkets in the UK with those that I see in India.

The biggest difference I noticed between grocery retail formats in UK v/s India is that unlike in the UK – there isn’t much of a difference….between the traditional grocery stores (the mom and pop variety) and the modern grocery formats (supermarkets as we know them). Let me explain…

Size & SKUs – super markets in the west are humongous (10 times or more) as compared to the tiny neighborhood grocery vendors. Naturally the number and variety of products stocked also increase proportionately. In India most supermarkets would be twice or at the most thrice as large as the mom-n-pop stores (leaving aside a few exceptions like Hypercity). I notice that the number of brands / product variants stocked does not differ significantly between stores of the two formats. This is partly related to the next point i.e. Location

Location – In the UK the corner stores have a locational advantage. One can literally run across the street and pick up emergency supplies (though that’s all they have) rather than having to drive down a few miles to reach a super market. In India it would not be uncommon to see traditional stores and supermarkets cheek by jowl with each other since the culture of driving down a few miles just to buy grocery has still not set in. Indians are habituated to having grocery stores in close proximity to their place of residence and that places constraints on the size and scale of operation a supermarket can potentially have.

Prices – In the UK a trip to the corner store would require you to shell out more pounds for your can of milk, where as in India prices do not vary too much by store format.

Opening Hours – In the UK the corner stores (run mostly by Indians / Pakistanis / Sri-lankans) stay open till late evening where as the supermarkets shut relatively earlier depending on where those are located. Most shops including the supermarkets on the ‘high street’ (chief shopping area) would shut by 6 p.m. – a grim reality that I’d rather not remind myself about. In India most shops stay open till 10 p.m. and since traditional and modern grocery stores operate in the same commercial zone their closing hours do not differ

Service – here I cannot comment too much about how different the levels of service are between the corner stores v/s supermarkets in the UK. I found a consistent professional attitude throughout. In India though, the traditional stores win hands down. To give you an idea let me cite my experience – I stay in a multi-lingual community. If I have to call the traditional store to place an order - I just have to specify my house number and he will greet me in the language I speak. They deliver within a span of 20 mins even if it is something that costs 20 bucks. If he does not have the product in his stock he would rather get it from the next store – than risk losing a customer. These stores often offer credit to known customers – if one is short of money the grocer’s typical response is… neither are you running away anywhere nor am I…pay me tomorrow !

Most of these traditional stores are family run businesses due to which the people employed have a greater interest in offering good service since it helps their business grow. The supermarket staff in stark contrast can project quite an indifferent attitude – at the end of the day it’s just a job for them and that too not a high paying one

Layout – is the most interesting element of this retail space. The mom and pop stores are breaking down their traditional structures and morphing into mini supermarkets – allowing the consumer to ‘walk in’ and browse through their wares which was earlier not possible partly due to the store layout and partly to blame were the ubiquitous but annoying sachets hanging from nowhere blocking one’s visibility. In their new avatars the traditional grocery stores are not only adding suffixes like ‘supermarket’ and ‘super-shopé’ to their names but also creating a cleaner, more organized layout. In place of dingy store interiors and bags of grains mercilessly dumped at the store entrance one encounters neatly partitioned shelves with a well thought out organization of products such that you will no longer find your mosquito repellent next to your pulses.

While the smaller stores are imitating store and shelf layouts from super market, the latter are taking lessons from these small guys on how to woo the elusive consumer back. Spinach – a super market in Mumbai employed some of the local vegetable vendors to stand inside the store and ‘cajole and connect with’ the consumer for whom the sterile and indifferent store ambiance was an alien concept. After all these consumers (mostly women) are used to shopping at vegetable markets, where conversations are exchanged with vendors along with money and goods.

Poor_Planner talks about one more potential 'work around' - supermarket chains co-opting with the local vegetable vendor

It’s interesting to see how retail establishments from these two worlds are converging – borrowing elements that work and shunning away those that don’t. The small – medium size ‘supermarket’ ensconced in residential pockets with service standards to match that of the traditional grocery – sounds to me - more like the future than - what we know and have seen of super markets in the west

supermarkets and india, modern retail and india

Is your music personal or social?

2007-05-10T14:03:00.000Z

A few days back I was at the doctor’s clinic with 2 others - a guy and a girl. While the 2 girls had no problem chatting away for the 2 hours preceding the doctor's arrival, the guy was bored with no newsprint in sight. Out of courtesy we occasionally chatted with him. On one such occasion girl 2 told guy 1 - you should have carried your iPod. I peeped into my bag to see if i had mine...I did...I shut my bag. A pause later I asked him hesitantly - I have mine...you could have it if you like. He paused and said...no that is alright! I was relieved.

Between the moments of my asking and his refusing, I was hoping he'd say NO. I don't know why - but it felt like I would be exposing a personal part of my life by handing over my iPod to him, though when i think about it logically, it only has my music files on it. It’s not without reason they decided to call it 'I'- Pod

Contrasting this with the Zune trying to create a 'social' - around the concept of listening to music I wonder how many people would be willing to share their music (via wifi) with strangers?
Even assuming one would come across another Zune owner in the vicinity - would it not be difficult to judge what his taste in music would be, to be able to decide which song to beam across to him? Would one not feel silly about sending in the 'wrong' kind of music?

Or was it not supposed to be a 'social' of strangers in the first place. Was it supposed to be friends introducing each other to music and thereby 'discovering' new tracks? Then why call it a ‘social’? The imagery that a social conjures up is of a large gathering of college kids, not really an intimate meeting of close friends.

It’s difficult to judge whether what's gone wrong with the Zune marketing is just a wrong choice of words or a larger issue of not getting the behavioral aspect around music listening right. But something surely is amiss and what’s more - even 6 months after launch people are talking about the same issues that users encountered when the product was just launched. But then again Microsoft was never known for being responsive to consumers.

On doing a blog search on Zune – I felt like I had walked into a soap opera – even if you tune into it after 6 months – you don’t hear anything new. The only thing different I read was the news about iPod launching their wifi enabled devices in the course of the year. It would be interesting to watch how they market this feature - if they decide to make a noise about it at all that is.

P.S – I did a random image search on the iPod to see what comes up. It’s interesting to view the range of situations in which iPod users interact with their devices – None of it seems like a social!

zune, iPod, welcome to the social

Another metaphor for research...Doors!

2007-05-10T09:13:00.000Z

There are things known and there are things unknown,
and in between are the doors
Jim Morrison

qualitative research and metaphor, qualitative research

Food for thought...

2007-04-25T18:44:00.000Z

It’s been a year since I started blogging about Qual Research. The reasons I started writing about Qual Research were a) to grow in my own thinking and b) since I found very little being written about it.

My vision for this blog has been, to develop it into a comprehensive source of information on commercial qualitative research. Over the past few months I have realized that there are many related areas / disciplines that impact a researcher's thinking and contribute to her skill set & knowledge and a blog about qual research is incomplete without discussions on such related disciplines.

I would posting such thoughts here - half baked to begin with - in the hope that I learn something from the discussions they create.

Hope you enjoy these interesting bite sized portions!

*************************************************************************************

Today's FFT - Does communication differ on planet mars v/s venus ?

Susan writes about the gender genie - a gender-writing analyser that can read your blog content or any piece of writing for that matter and predict - your gender. I put in my blog content there and the genie decided I have a masculine style of writing. Maybe true.

Men and women do tend to write differently and even relate to / interpret communication differently. Susan's post touches up on the 'thinking' v/s 'feeling' preferences in men v/s women.
I wondered after reading her post - when communication is designed to target a specific audience - are these differences kept in mind consciously / intuitively by communication experts ? Would copy / creatives developed by a man appeal to the sensibilities of a woman as well as if those were designed by a woman herself?

For instance - I had a discussion with someone a while ago about the way marketing has been designed for lingerie brands. I had a hunch that there were two distinctive ways in which lingerie was being marketed - 1 seemed like an overtly masculine perspective reflected in the product line (loud colours, fish net stockings) and the store ambiance (raunchy looking models) - the brand that comes to mind is Ann Summers. The other seemed to take a feminine approach - pastel colours, where the mannequins looked elegant rather than overtly sexy - the kind that one would see at M&S.

Do you also see that as a gender difference in the way the two brands have been positioned ?

brand communication, gender differences and brand communication

Qual Research and the Art Metaphor - Part 2

2007-04-25T17:53:00.000Z

First things first - To those of you who are still hanging around here in some hope of seeing a post – my apologies for disappearing!

********************************************************************************

In my 1st post on the subject, I used the Art metaphor to show how the skills required by commercial qual researchers become subconscious after a certain level of proficiency is reached and perhaps that is the reason why knowledge in this field is mostly acquired by observation and through word of mouth rather than through any formally documented way. Perhaps that is also the reason why it is often misconstrued to be unscientific in nature.

I use the metaphor once again today to bring up the question of 'Reliability'

When the topic of qual research is being discussion it is not uncommon to hear that - if two qual researchers are asked study a subject and report findings, you'd could hear two or more differing views. This can be confounding and often leads to people questioning the 'reliability' (repeatability / consistency) of research.

Going back to the metaphor - if 3 people were asked to paint the same subject - let’s say the Statue of Liberty, would we see identical results by all 3 artists? In all likelihood we would NOT! Could we then assume that one or the other has painted the picture wrong? The answer to that is again a NO.

The artist picks up a slice of the reality that is in front of him and reproduces it on canvas with the intention of expressing what he saw. One focuses on the face - trying to capture the emotions that the monument symbolizes, the other focuses on the context & captures the backdrop against which the monument stands, the 3rd captures the technical prowess behind the monument.

The purpose of qual research is to understand the meaning that consumers attribute to their experiences around brands / products and that meaning is very much a part of the consumer's subjective reality. There is no one definite way of looking at a brand /product; we look at things through the filter of our own experiences & past associations. And one of the objectives of qual research is to explore the many possible ways in which consumers perceive and create reality rather than limiting the canvas to the dominant and commonly held perceptions.

In fact if a consumer is asked to narrate a memory around an experience on two occasions - the recollections would most likely be different since memory is not static, it is dynamically created by bringing together associations based on the stimulus or trigger. When researchers report things differently - they are attempting to recreate the reality they have seen / heard.

Planning / Designing Research

As a researcher I have often been told "we would like to do 4 groups amongst these respondents in these 2 cities". While planning research - we often go by past research done on a subject as a benchmark...use similar methods, geographies, talk to the same people. Research proposals and discussion guides are pulled out from earlier studies and minimally tweaked to suit new ones. The result is anybody’s guess - we hear the same sort of responses which were heard a while ago with little incremental value added by the new research. This can be partly attributed to the assumption we make while planning i.e. since we are studying the same subject matter using the same research design would not be out of line and partly to lazy thinking.

Planning is one of the most important steps in a research project which sadly gets overshadowed due to the lack of time.

Even if the subject of the painting is the same – the vision that an artist has of the painting will determine what he decides to capture on his canvas and the tools / colors he uses to translate that vision.

Likewise the objective of research will determine the research design. For instance – lets take a research that needs to be designed for a brand of tea – if the purpose of the research is to understand the consumer & her mindset to design communication – it would be best to talk to her individually. If one needs to understand her context / interaction with the product – talking to her could be supplemented by observations. If the purpose is to understand the significance of the product in a culture and how that has changed over time – a consumer interaction may not be the ideal way forward. A semiotic study may have to be undertaken.

The idea is to look at each piece of research with the fresh perspective - to adopt a ‘solution - neutral approach’ – narrow down on the slice of the subject area to be studied and then arrive at the design that will best capture the information you want. And not the other way around.

Leigh Ausband, author of the paper Qualitative Research and Quilting uses a very simple example to emphasis the importance of planning….

I look at some quilts where I rushed, where I used a fabric I had on hand instead of waiting until I could get to the fabric store to purchase just the right piece…those quilts could have had a better outcome; they could have been richer in color or had more texture. However, I rushed and got less-than-satisfactory results. That is a lesson to be remembered. I will keep on working at gaining access, remembering that this project will be better and richer if I can get more participants, and get the right participants, the participants that can contribute the most to the project

Improper / inadequate planning
=
Compromising on the inputs that go into the creation of anything
(in case of research - research method, research instrument & participants)
=
A less than perfect output

Technorati Tags : qualitative research, research metaphor, planning qualitative research

Why we blog?

2007-03-08T17:53:00.000Z

That's the latest meme doing the rounds. Even before Laurence tagged me - I was surreptitiously following this thread since it offers insights on what movtivates people about blogs in particular and social media in general. I have not been able to spend as much time on it as I would have liked to but will share what i read and felt. But first - to do justice to the meme - let me put down my reasons.

There was just one prime reason I started blogging and that was

Driven by the craving for intellectual stimulation - since in the real world I seldom encountered people wanting to exchanges thoughts and ideas - especially on subjects that interests me. Blogs fill this gap since people who are interested in 'what' i write about naturally gravitate towards my blog like I do towards theirs.

What keeps me going are ofcourse different things

The desire to learn about - the evolving social medium and the more time I spend on blogs and other social media sites, the more I understand the way they function. Much more than what I would have ever accomplished as an outsider.

If there was one thing I had to say to any corporate entity wanting to make a presence on this medium - I'd say - get your hands dirty - do the thing that we individuals do. Approach social media sites as an individual first and a corporate entity only later - and you'll begin to appreciate the medium and its workings far more quicky

My other reason is - I use this blog first as a motivation to keep analysing what i think and read & then as a place to dump all those thoughts - so that I can clear the space in my mind for some more thoughts

Now for what I gathered from reading other posts in this thread.
Motivations were clustered around the following themes

Create - differentiate, stand out, self expression, learn new ideas, realise unfulfilled dreams
Connect - build relationships, create a space where people can find me, know what is happening in people's life
Recognition -expert in own area, instant reactions, assertion of self-worth, get noticed & at the highest level the feeling of having one's thoughts immortalised
Reward - through relationships, through barter of services, create weath out of virtually nothing but knowledge, neutrality of the net - if my nextdoor kid can make money so can I

Clearly it is an individual's 'personal space' - where he is the centre of the little universe he has created. Personal also in another sense - since people use it to connect as much with themselves as with the outside world.

Corporates wanting to enter this space created by inviduals, need to respect that. Here the consumer / individual is and feels like a hero - and brands that do not recognise that have been faced with and will continue to face backlash - and a highly viral and visible one at that !

Tagging - a few blogsI have been reading off late : Comfortable Disorientation, Indian Ad Rant,
Tissue Issues & The Viral Garden - take it up if you are upto it

And before I go, posting will be highly infrequent in the next 2 - 3 weeks !

Technorati Tags: why i blog, motivations for blogging,social media

What do Art and Qualitative Research have in common?

2007-02-26T14:34:00.000Z

Understanding Qualitative Research through Metaphors...
This paper, on using Quilting as a Metaphor to clarify the research process, caught my fancy since I had written a brief piece on the differences between qualitative and quantitative research inspired by another research paper that used the 'quilting' metaphor to explore the differences between these two disciplines. These papers have not only made for interesting reading but also helped me clarify some of my own thoughts about research through these metaphors.

In my early days as a researcher, I struggled to understand the rules of the game.

How does one define what an adequate sample size is – whether 4 groups or 8 interviews are enough to represent the reality we are trying to capture?
What exactly is meant by analyzing the data – other than placing data in a structure and looking for patterns – what does one actually do?
How do you define a good interview – was it with the chatty woman who couldn't stop talking and kept us amused OR the guy who was curt but spoke enough to help me answer all the questions I had?

The subconscious forces at work
Market Research textbooks for some reason do not carry more than a chapter on qual research. In the absence of formally documented knowledge (and here i am talking only about commercial qual, not academic) we gain it primarily on the job - by observing senior researchers or occasionally through informal conversations about the dos and donts. I suppose this happens because as a researcher gains proficiency in her craft - her skills in dealing with the complexity of this discipline improve subconsciously.

For instance, before starting to sketch, an artist if asked, can tell you what he is planning to sketch (let's say a leaf), what kind it would be, which colours he would use, his vision of it (a maple leaf symbolising the onset of autumn) etc. However, he would find it difficult to articulate exactly how much pressure he has to apply on his brush for the required amount of paint to stay on the canvas, at what angle he holds & tilts the brush head to get the accuracy of his stroke or how much of the leaf surface area should have the colour green/amber to reflect the changing seasons - since these aspects are part of his subconscious framework.

Likewise a researcher can be told about things like - possible information areas she needs to unearth in a discussion, the tools she has at her disposal... where, how and when she needs to execute those to be able to answer the burning question the marketer has. However for many other aspects it is difficult to lay down rules covering all probable outcomes. For instance what is the right level of comfort for the researcher to ask the respondent about that intensely emotional experience? How should one differentiate between a respondent who is stubbornly silent and one who is quiet, shy & will open up with prodding; between a person who is silent because she simply does not understand the question or or someone who has understood it & is uncomfortable answering it? The decision about whether a 20 minute discussion has covered enough ground on the respondent's habit or will she reveal her all important quirk in the next 5 mins? Much of what a researcher does or how she reacts in such situations is subconscious - often referred to as a 'matter of judgement'

Debunking the myth of being unscientific
Often qualitative research is perceived to be a discipline that is unscientific, lacking a rigid set of rules/structure or sometimes even esoteric. I suppose this perception emanates from the fact that as a discipline it is relatively more flexible, open and encourages deviations and creativity.

I remember how I learnt painting - I would always start of with a blank paper divided into smaller squares. Then in each square i would carefully replicate the required pattern and fill in the colours. Overtime I gained proficiency, I could replicate something without having to sketch it first or follow a grid. I could tweak the colours a bit. People who have mastered this skill create original works of art. If one has to observe such a person, especially in case of abstract work, the artist does not even have a reference for his painting. He starts with a canvas, his paints, brushes and a vision of what he wants to achieve and goes about creating that by putting colour to the canvas in a seemingly free form. Does that mean he does not follow any rules or worse still the discipline of painting because it allows creativity is unscientific and not governed by any principles at all? If that were true anyone / everyone would be able to paint effortlessly! These rules exist - its just that for regular artists the rules of how to balance colours, or create a symmetry between elements of the painting & the overall composition have become subconscious over time.

Likewise for researchers who have achieved a certain level of proficiency, the discipline offers an environment open/flexible enough for them to exercise their creativity in designing/ executing research, analysing & interpreting findings and experimenting with newer ways of representing these findings. Creative liberties are permissible, though grounds rules are followed. If i need to unearth an emotional trigger around a product i may chose to talk to a respondent at a time or a family or a bunch of strangers together depending on my need - though just for the sake of creativity or following a methodology in vogue i will NOT randomly decide to do ethnographic observations instead, since what I can achieve by conversation I cannot in this case understand by mere observation.

Whether it is art or research - the rules may not be always be obvious or apparent to an onlooker - but that does not mean the rules don't exist!

More to come - using the art metaphor to understand 'reliability in research' and what to consider while planning a research project.

Technorati Tags : qualitative research, research metaphor

Adapting Projective Techniques in Research - Part 2

2007-02-20T15:58:00.000Z

Taking off from where we left

Going beyond personification and sentence completions....
We were asked to design a study that involved understanding the brand equity of an auto-mobile brand. The 1st challenge was that - the brand in question was not one of the leaders in the category and therefore its salience and involvement with consumers was relatively low. The 2nd challenge was that part of the target audience comprised teen age girls - whose involvement with the brand was even more tenuous.

Using Logos as catalysts for generating brand associations
Instead of using the standard set of projective techniques we decided to experiment with some new ones. While we were designing that research - there was a logo quiz doing the rounds in our office. Most of us found that quiz addictive since irrespective of one's involvement or actual usage of a brand - logos are ubiquitous symbols that we are exposed to day in and day out. One may not spend too much time trying to read meaning into a logo design and how that is reflective of a brand but one does form associations around these logos - associations that are sometimes subliminal. So we decided to take that online logo quiz into the real world of our research.

- We used it specifically with the older males
- The exercising involved guessing the brand name from the logo. This got people pretty involved in the game - it was challenging and fun though we used this just to warm them up to the idea
- Post the guessing game we zeroed in on the 3 - 4 brands that mattered to us and got them to reel out associations they had about those brands based on their logos.
- From the data we captured - it was evident that did not merely talk about the brand based on its logo - rather the logos acted as stimuli that triggered / unearthed thoughts that they had about these brands. Things they saw in the logo sparked off thoughts about their experiences around these brands that they would then narrate to us.

Taking cues from Popular culture
Movies and music from movies have for long been quite a vibrant part of the pop culture in India. Each week a dozen new movies or more are released and viewed. People discuss movie actors, their lives, their costumes, the songs...so much so that even some of the national news channels in India now have regular coverage on this. There is a film song for every situation or so it is said and it is not unusual for people to recall them and break into a spontaneous session of song and laughter. So we decided to include a game of songs in our research

- Designed for the teen age girls - this tool worked well - since such games are common in college The girls had to work in small groups and come up with the songs they thought characterised the brands
- The groups helped in ideating. The songs - since those were part of a larger context of a film carried some residual meaning and association with them - which helped the girls articulate what they felt about the brands which were being spoken of
- We rounded up the exercise by asking them their reasons for choosing specific songs and getting reactions from other groups on songs chosen by a group.

Were these experiments an efficient way of gathering information?
Did these exercises help us get information we were seeking - Yes and in hindsight I can say that it was in a manner that was intuitive keeping in mind the audience and therefore they seemed to talk about these brands with relative ease. To that extent we achieved 'validity' in research. When we compared the set of brand associations across groups that we derived from these two and some more exercises we used in that research - we found consistency amongst them and to that extent the goal of 'internal reliability' was achieved as well. Would this have been possible using standard techniques? I don't know - since we never had a matched sample where we used the standard projectives - though I can say that we did not lose anything as a result of trying to experiment with newer ones and it only turned out to be easy and fun for the respondents

The question of adaptation
Projective techniques have basically been adopted in research from another discipline. Research was never the home ground for these tools. Also in their adaptation and use, we have not over time formulated norms against which findings are benchmarked or analysed. Analysis and inferences mainly happens by way of triangulation (comparing findings from multiple techniques), juxtaposing the data from these tools against what is said in the general group discussion and by understanding from the consumers themselves the motives for their responses. If I assume my understanding of using projectives in research is not too far from the mark then - the question in my mind is - why do the few that we originally inherited from psychology continue to dominate research even today? Based on some ground rules would it not be possible to design newer techniques that are specifically suited to market research and / or the target audience being researched?

Projective Techniques,Projective Techniques and qualitative research,qualitative research,

Adapting projective techniques in research - Part 1

2007-02-15T15:26:00.000Z

Projective Techniques - Why do we use those in Research

Originally used by psychologists to understand the subconscious aspects of one's personality - projective techniques involve getting people to respond to ambiguous stimuli with the assumption that it 'projecting' their inner thoughts and feelings on to the stimulus would be less threatening / intimidating than speaking about those directly

These techniques have found their way into market research a) As way of tapping into the consumer subconscious and b) an alternative and often easier way (v/s direct questioning) to get consumers to express themselves. In the 1st application these tools allow 'projection' of repressed subconscious thoughts and in the 2nd case they are meant to facilitate / enable the articulation of thought (may / may not be subconscious) otherwise difficult to express .

What to consider while designing research involving Projective Techniques

The use of projective / enabling techniques in research can be fun or NOT depending on which ones are used, how many are used in a given research session and how those are incorporated and executed. I have sat through some research sessions which only involved executing one technique after another - for 3 hours. Like anything else stretched beyond the limit, it left me with a bunch of tired and sometimes even angry respondents waiting to charge out of the research facility. There is a another particularly disastrous interview that comes to mind - with an oldish man who was quizzed about computer peripherals. I had to first ask him to personify the product and then the brands (yes not one but 3) in the category. The man could not conceive computer parts / brands as human beings to save his life. I could only empathise with him ! (In my defence I did not design those studies :)

Which One to use - These techniques becomes counter-productive if we do not keep into mind the audience we are talking to, while designing the research. An older audience may not respond well to the idea of imagining products / brands as human beings - a concept that a younger audience may relate very easily to. Similarly I have often found housewives who have been out-of-touch with 'writing' find it very difficult and sometimes even embarrassing to fill out their responses in writing. Talking comes more naturally to them as we know only too well :) The output of activities such as completing thought bubbles, sentence completion, or even simple self completion questionnaires end up as half completed sentences amidst a paragraph full of scratched out words.

How many to use - When used intermittently with discussions they sometimes act as energizers besides fulfilling their primary purpose. But when someone decides to do a marathon run with executing 10 techniques in a row - then its a case of greed and foolishness.

How to execute - The 3rd factor to watch out for is how is one actually going to execute the tool. In everyday life people do not go around filling out thought blurbs, playing word games or imagining their toothpaste as a human being. Although these techniques are meant to 'facilitate expression' we often forget that switching from our normal mode to doing what these techniques expect can pose a barrier to expression in itself. It helps therefore if people are not expected to respond to a cold question, if the researcher leads by example, if the activity is made to be a little bit of fun rather than an exercise that expects the person on the other end to perform.

I have learnt that part of the ease of expression happens because of the mood / frame of mind people are put in and if they are able to relate to the activity they are asked to do, intuitively.

As much as I've been part of disastrous research , there have also been some studies which have been sensitively designed with some interesting adaptations to the use of projectives - which was the reason why I started writing this post today. I'll save those anecdotes for part 2

Projective Techniques,Projective Techniques and qualitative research,qualitative research,

Lost in the supermarket - a transcultural perspective on retailing

2007-01-31T13:29:00.000Z

We live in times when individuals and organizations seamlessly move across borders.

We also live in times when choice is aplenty - bordering on excessive and sometimes needless

The interplay of these two trends creates a complex marketing environment.

When we move we carry a bit of our culture and habits with us. We try to fit - a new reality into an existing mould, while at the same time grappling with a deluge of products / brands.

Christine and Katia initiated a discussion with a view to understand how a transcultural reality - affects consumers and marketers. What consumers do and what marketers can do. I joined in.

What emerged as a result is a collection of posts on the subject:

A Transcultural Perspective On The Retail Experience - By Katia Adams
Musings on Choice, Culture and the Retail Experience - By Christine Whittemore
Too much NOISE! - By Laurence Borel
Lost in the Supermarket - By Reshma Anand

Enjoy !

Mining blogs: pertinent chat

2007-01-25T11:06:00.000Z

The article originally appeared in AQR's In Brief Jan 2007 issue.

________________________________________________________________

Listening, conversing and communicating, three aspects of qualitative research, were examined by speakers from AQR at this year’s QRCA conference***. If our work involves listening to consumer reality, interpreting it and communicating it to the marketer is there an emerging part of this reality that we as researchers are not tuned into?

Historically, communication between marketers and consumers has been a closed end loop. On the one hand, marketers have sent out messages to consumers. On the other, they’ve sought feedback from them through traditional research. This modus operandi was effective until the ‘Internet juggernaut’ appeared.

Now, consumers can not only speak their mind but also broadcast their opinions. The deluge of marketing messages combined with low consumer trust has led to people relying on one another’s opinions to make sense of the muddle, prompting conversations between them. These chats are to be found on blogs/consumer sites and have so far escaped the information loop.

- Not being privy to these conversations is to remain oblivious to a vital part of the consumer’s world. But that is not the only reason to tap into blogs.
- Opinions on blogs are unsolicited and, therefore, likely to result from experience or strong beliefs. Anonymity only adds to the authenticity.
- Blogs are updated frequently, almost as soon as bloggers have something to say, making them an immensely valuable medium for tracking trends, buzzwords and initial reactions to a launch.
- Blog conversations leave behind a trail of links, useful for understanding how information flows and how opinions are shaped and influenced.
- Blogs help in exploratory research to understand consumer language, develop working hypotheses and fine tune information needs.
-Tracking blogs over time can help acquire a deeper understanding of a target segment since a blogger shares his opinions on many issues and that gives ‘context’ to the information gathered.

Blog mining as a technique is evolving so there is no definitive approach to be prescribed. Here, however, are a few pointers for those embarking on research involving blogs:

- Shortlist a sample of bloggers based on their authority on your subject using blog search engines like Google Blog Search and Technorati.
- Define the time frame: while looking for post-launch reactions allow for a lag of 5-7 days for consumers to explore product features/form opinions.
- Bloggers don’t always post unique opinions. Some just link to one another. Allow for a buffer in your sample for data duplication.
- Blogs are living evolving thoughts. Sometimes issues that are simple to start with acquire dimensions as readers comment. Remember to follow the thread and budget for a bit of time since some trails can lead you on a long trek.

Consumers are opening up a bit more of their world to us. It’s time we took notice.

______________________________________________________________

*** The webcast and many others can be heard on the QRCA website.
The AQR library has an excellent collection of articles on qualitative research

Blog Mining,Blogs and qualitative research,online qualitative research,

iPod v/s Zune - wear the music v/s where's the music

2007-01-21T11:04:00.000Z

No, those are not the official taglines to the Zune or the iPod campaign though for me, those lines summed up where the two brands stood and what they created for consumers - at a given point in time. The contrast could not be better timed.

The Zune and iPod shuffle were launched approximately 10 days from each other. The 'generation gap' between the products was apparent yet comparing the brands was a foregone conclusion.

While the iPod comes out...
The iPod has long enjoyed an iconic status. The white ear phones have over time became ubiquitous. A tell-tale sign of the popularity of the device and the brand. I read about kids (less fortunate than the ones who could afford an iPod) who'd paint their black ear phones white, to feel like a part of the cult of the cool. Then there was someone who just bought a pair of white earphones from eBay without ever owning an iPod. Its not difficult to guess why. It is no longer a device sported by music aficionados. It has acquired the status of a fashion accessory that people feel they must have. The conspicuous presence only fuels its popularity and sales further.

The iPod shuffle takes the whole idea of the iPod being a fashion accessory to the next level. While earlier generation iPods stayed ensconced within pockets and let the ear phones do the talking, the new generation shuffle is smugly perched outside.

The Zune goes in...
Contrast this with the close to 5 ounce Zune know for its bulk amongst other things. Its no surprise that the Zune would have stay content indoors (inside bags and pockets) for a while.
Visibility signals popularity and to that extent Zune takes a beating on account of its bulk. However the story does not end there. It only just begins. Since related to the issue of visibility is a feature that is touted as the product's raisons d'être - the wifi capability which makes the 'social' happen so to say. Now the problem is that though Zune did welcome people to the social, it expected consumers to create a social by themselves. Early adopters have been looking high and low for fellow Zuners to experience music transfer through wifi , though only very few have been lucky. Why? A combination of factors - visibility being one of them.

Its not difficult to imagine, that if people are on the go, it is highly likely that that even if they were carrying their Zunes with them the device in its current avataar is not conducive to being sported outside. I suppose the ear phones are not distinguishable either. With the lack of visibility the probability of tracing a zune user to wifi with becomes slim. Overlay this situation with the fact that keeping the wifi turned on all the time is a tremendous drain on battery - and what have you. Far fewer Zunes that are wifi enabled and a bunch of early adopters not getting enough chances to test the single most differentiating feature of the product. The subliminal message that consumers get as a result is that the product has not really take off in the market since they can't find people with it.

Notwithstanding the contrasts, what is common to both these brands is how - in both cases visibility has become a surrogate measure for popularity which in turn will influence sales - only consolidating the positions further.

iPod Shuffle,iPod v/s Zune,Zune,

Using Hypnosis in Qualitative Research

2007-01-12T10:14:00.000Z

Hypnosis has come a long way from being perceived as a manipulative tool. It finds mention in the world of psychiatry, medicine and forensic sciences. However, snooping on the consumer’s subconscious - just to sell tea or soap is thought to be unusual and unethical by most of us.

Hypnosis – a window to the consumer’s subconscious

Marketers have long felt the need to go beyond the consumer’s conscious and rational thoughts. The application of projective techniques in research has partially fulfilled that need. Albeit indirectly, these techniques allow us access to the consumer’s subconscious. Instead of articulating their experiences directly, consumers project their feelings on to other people / objects thereby circumvent some of their rational defenses. This indirect approach still leaves a gap in understanding which a segment of marketers, is attempting to bridge by directly accessing the consumer’s subconscious - through hypnosis.

Hypnosis involves creating ‘an artificially induced state in which the layer of the conscious controlling apparatus in the individual is cleared away, which opens up the subconscious world of the person’. Imagine a see-saw - with the two planks representing the two streams of consciousness. When the conscious stream is lying low, the subconscious stream comes to the fore.

Contrary to what people believe, hypnosis is a natural and safe experience that we often encounter without awareness. For instance, a person walking on the road, listening to his iPod may not be aware of the time / distance he has covered, yet he would be conscious of road safety, traffic rules and his destination. The difference between that and the hypnotic trance is – that the former is a natural trance, whereas the latter is induced deliberately - by deep relaxation and focusing that dilutes the attention of the conscious mind.

How does hypnosis add value to consumer research?

A woman in her early 40s recalls her first memory around a brand of tea. Tea is the first thing she learnt to make and on this occasion is serving it to her guests. The sense of pride she felt 30 years ago is visible on her face as she relives the experience. Praise for her effort translates into a trust and connection she makes with this brand. Such narrations bring a whole new dimension to responses otherwise expressed in research as ‘I cannot change the brand of tea that I have used for the past 20 years since I’m used to it’. Probe further and the conversation takes a familiar turn where taste, strength and flavour dominate the discussion! Through hypnosis, it is possible for consumers to be age-regressed in time, to recall their first encounters with brands and the associated emotions which help marketers get cues on the drivers for brand loyalty.

Since the conscious mind is dormant, while in hypnosis consumers are less inhibited and talk about personal experiences such as shaving, bathing, and oral care without embarrassment or hesitation. This does not mean they will unknowingly reveal details they don’t intend to. Even while in hypnosis one cannot be forced to say or do anything that goes against their morals or sensibilities.

In a conscious state an individual recalls an incident, whereas in hypnosis he relives the moment. Consumers have reported experiencing the same emotions they had once felt. I felt I was actually there is what one would hear after such an interview. This feeling of ‘being there’ also means that the amount of detail recalled or sensory perceptions felt during such interviews is unmatched. This is particularly useful while researching activities such as grocery shopping, brushing teeth, washing clothes which are low on involvement and monotonous or categories such as food or shampoos where sensorial cues matter and are otherwise difficult to verbalize.

Besides bringing new dimensions to the content gathered, hypnosis aids the research process. Since the focus is driven inwards, a person under hypnosis is not distracted by external stimuli and not consciously aware of the time elapsed. Thus the quality of responses does not deteriorate with lengthy conversations. Moreover, it helps consumers understand their own thought process better and therefore can be an enriching experience for the consumer as well.

A few caveats

Hypnosis is a powerful tool in the hands of a researcher and the need for training cannot be overemphasized. Abreaction i.e. the involuntary release of a repressed negative emotion is a possibility that the hypnotist ought to handle discreetly. Also a person under hypnosis is highly suggestible and this implies that the hypnotist use the tool ethically - only to understand the consumer’s thoughts and not plant suggestions in his mind for commercial gain.

Featured in - ManagementNext, Jan 2007

Hypnosis,Hypnosis and Qualitative Research,Consumer and Subconscious,

On using Mind-Maps in Qualitative Research

2007-01-05T18:06:00.000Z

Linear discussion guides made to exacting specifications

I dislike voluminous discussion guides. What I dislike even more is that a researcher is expected to revise discussions guides repeatedly to set the tone just as the client expects it to be. In my early days, I came across some researchers actually memorising the guides, and i don't blame them. The structure of a guide (linear, flowing from page-to-page) does not lend itself to easy adaptation especially for a rookie with a client sitting in a back room, looking for a skipped question rather than intently listening to the discussion .

The futility of the effort is magnified since these guides don't serve the purpose in the first place. We are not programmed to think in a linear fashion. Our mental associations do not always follow patterns such as
1. xxxxxx
1.a yyyyyyyy
1.b zzzzzzzzz

Which is why you hear consumers jumping from one topic to another in their responses, and find a researcher frantically turning pages trying to mentally tick off points covered. Worse still trying to force the discussion back to a linear format. Instead of delving into mental associations, we focus on the discussion structure. Talk about missing the forest for the trees !

The Byzantine web of thoughts

The picture represents our neural structure. Our thoughts are organized and stored as a web of associations in the brain. One thought could trigger multiple thoughts along one or more dimensions. Besides, the development of these thoughts does not follow any pre-determined order or sequence. Sometimes even the very mention of a category / brand, could evoke a spring of thoughts in the consumer's mind. There is a divergence between the actual and the assumed process of cognition leading to a loss of information.

Mind-maps mirror our thought process

Mind maps like the one illustrated at the top can be constructed using any mind-mapping software. These are intuitive since these are a representation of our natural flow of thoughts.

The mind map in lieu of a conventional discussion guide allows the researcher to scan the fluid pathways of information as the conversation evolves rather than jump back and forth between pages to keep pace.
Its application and use in research does not stop there. In my limited exposure to mind-mapping i have found that it aids the mental process of capturing the 'information' areas before conducting research.
While listening to consumer conversations, one can visualise some of the mental associations consumers make and their flights of thought as these happen.
Visualising those flights of thought has also been useful, while analysing & drawing inferences from the data, since it eases the process of finding patterns to an extent.

Wishful thinking: If only one could convince the 'client' to have a mind-map instead of a DG, it would save some fruitless effort. And while we are at it, how about another mind-map instead of the de-briefing document ! :)

Reference: You can find the link to download the mind-mapping software on this page To my mind it is easy to get used to !

Mind Map,Mind Map and Qualitative Research,Discussion Guide,Discussion Guide and Mind Map,

A game of Tag and branding

2006-12-28T18:17:00.000Z

What was that again...Zeilg....never mind !

If you had to see someone with a name tag like that, its highly likely you'd give that name tag one long hard stare in trying to remember it, repeat it silently at least 5 times hoping you are pronouncing it correctly and perhaps even embrass yourself when you say it.

In case you are wondering why I am saying all this - I am taking off from C.B's post here. She posted an interesting thought about how the 'game of tags' in the virtual world could be put to use in the real world to enhance customer experience. She writes...

The whole concept of 'blog tag' reminds me that often the hardest part of developing a relationship with customers is that initial point of connection. So, imagine enabling that connection through a non-virtual version of 'blog tag'... Think of hotels where the concierge and others wear nametags showing both city of origin and name. Don't your eyes gravitate to that information? And, don't you start a conversation with that person relating to that info?

4H5-ZPTO
Whenever I am asked which mobile handset i use, I say 'Nokia'. Even while i say it, i can anticipate the next question. Which model? And i have to reluctantly say 'I don't know'. The conversation does not end there, but it suffices to say that no matter how hard i try, I cannot for the life of me remember alpha numeric codes. It is for the same reason that communication for hardware / electronics - that reel out such numbers - does not resonate with me.

Vin Cuit
Ever been to a restaurant, where instead of telling the person taking your order what you'd like, you've had to point a finger to the menu since you were too embarrassed to pronounce. Worse still ever had an experience where instead of deciding what you'd like to eat, you stare at the strange words on the menu with the alphabets rolling in front of your eyes. Names that are originally linked to a cuisine do have a ring of authenticity, though the customer could have the an unpleasant experience with the words rolling over his tongue.

Of Scandinavian lakes & Swedish Islands
Ever bought garden furniture or bathroom accessories that were named after lakes and islands. You probably have except that it hasn't clicked that funny looking jumble of words on your IKEA products actually meant something! People who buy IKEA do so for the design elements and affordability and a product name would not deter them from their purchase decision - but it does leave consumers wondering, gives them no context to the product name and in some cases even causes inconvenience.

Where do the 'dots' go
My last thought on the subject is on del.icio.us and i still don't know whether i have got the dots in the right place and frankly, it does not matter any more since if you did type just 'delicious' - it would take you to their site, but once upon a time it did not and one had to take the trouble to remember. Fortunately for them, they recognized this and made the corrections early on!

The point is

Poor Zeilgyiv did not have a choice with his name,
but...Marketers do!
(In what and how their brands / products are named)

______________________________________________________________
Ref
Where i first read about the trouble with the delicious name - the delicious tax
A two part article decoding the mystery behind the IKEA product names - Part 1, 2
What to watch out for while considering brand / product names - here and here

brand names,product names,IKEA,del.icio.us,

The Qualitative Research Blog : On why this blog has a new name

2006-12-19T12:19:00.000Z

Not that any one would notice, but this blog used to be called 'What I do for a Living' ....and now it is not! As much as I would have liked to chose something that sounds more interesting and esoteric I have adapted a very boring, prosaic phrase. Why?

1. What I do for a living is very generic - I could be making peanut-butter-jelly sandwiches for a living! Do a google search on that phrase and you will see results describing 'what the living do' to 'someone who sings happy birthday to his car every 1000 miles'. So I have a hope in hell with a name like that, a serious surfer on research would find my blog.

2. I have been looking for qual research blogs and haven't had much luck finding them. In the process i happened to figure out a little google secret. Google blog search picks up blogs and displays those amongst the top urls 'only if your blog title / name has words that coincide with the search phrase' - So I put in a title as simple as 'The qualitative research blog' - and did a search using the phrase 'qualitative research' - and it worked!

If you are going to spend a great deal of time and energy writing about a subject, it makes all the more sense to tweak your blog elements, to be seen and heard by the right audience!

qualitative research,qualitative research blog,qualitative market research,market research,

The Marketing Z-list : A little nudge to the left

2006-12-19T10:16:00.000Z

If you are one of those bloggers who is happy typing away at the keyboard each day without ever looking at your site stats then there are just two possibilities a) you are amongst the top 5 % - who have far too many visitors on for them to even keep track of OR b) you belong to the 0.001 % of the blogging population who just blog for the love of it and you are way above the mundaneness of things like visitor stats or blog ranks. For the rest of us - we sit on the belly of the normal curve and try to stealthily inch our way to the left.

The revenge of the Z-lister is one such attempt. Technorati / Google - where people generally stop to look for blogs - use the number of incoming links to a page as an indicator of authority. So if you are a nube, there'll be few bloggers who'd know of you, even fewer linking to you, your chances of appearing on these search engines become slimer and you'd probably be pushed away into obscurity.

The other thing many of us inadvertently do is, when we start blogging, we read those popular, authoritative blogs and link them to our blog rolls - feeding them with more incoming links - and more authority - nothing wrong with that - expect that many of these blogs are already so visible - they probably dont need that extra publicity - where as some one else may deservedly earn a huge mileage from the extra links. And the law of diminishing marginal utility - returns!

So here's to increasing marginal returns with links where they still matter...

Chris Brown
Shotgun Marketing Blog
Mack
BrandSizzle
bizsolutionsplus
Customers Rock!
Being Peter Kim
Two Hat Marketing
The Branding Blog
The Emerging Brand
Mike
CrapHammer
Drew’s Marketing Minute
Golden Practices
Viaspire
Tell Ten Friends
Flooring the Consumer
Kinetic Ideas
MSCO
Buzzoodle
NewsPaperGrl
Sports Marketing 2.0
Black In Business
On Influence and Automation
Marketing Hipster
Viral Meister
Trend Watching
Social Media Marketing
Customer Experience Crossroads
The Curious Shopper
The Qualitative Research Blog (What I do for a living)
Customers Are Always
Experienceology

And My additions to the List

B2B Blog
Mind Space
Marketing Profs:Daily Fix
Blackfriars' Marketing

How you can take the list forward

Cut and paste the list of blogs into your new post, adding any additional blogs that you think need more air time. Add the same instructions in your post so the next blogger does the same.

Follow the Trail...
The meme started here and then went here, here and here (where you will find the html for 25 or so links that will save you some Ctrl C / Ctrl V effort) I found it on this blog

* Confessions of a Z list Blogger - a hilarious piece of writing on the subject! Must Read.

Marketing Z-List,Z List Blogs,Buzz Marketing,technorati,Z List,Z-List,

Packaging elements Part 2 - What consumers infer

2006-12-14T17:49:00.000Z

While reading about Innocent Smoothie for my last post on packaging i stumbled upon a number of blog posts where people had written about walking into supermarkets and finding their innocent smoothie bottles lined up on the shelves in their pretty winter caps. The kind souls at 'innocent' will give away 50p to Age Concern for every bottle sold. Well, it truly is a warm gesture but I will restrict my post to the packaging idea.

The guys at Innocent smoothie - a bunch of warm and happy people

- This is like stating the obvious but, bottles lined on the a shelf with cute colourful little hats on them definitely break the clutter and stand out without really being in-your-face-loud.

- I have come across marketers using collectibles before, but only ones which have been targeted at kids - pokemon, tazzos and such like. These supergran hats are collectibles for adults or should i refer to them as 'grown up kids'. While reading the bloggers who had written about this, I came across so many who mentioned - I looked but couldn't find many more such bottles on the shelves...with people responding in the comment box saying...I want that too

- The brand through these hats has really infused some fun into people's lives. Look through this flickr group to see some of the fun people have had with these cuties. It makes the brand more endearing to the consumer. Google is one more such brand that inspires warmth amongst people who talk about it.

- It generates a buzz. It gives people something to talk about. Look what I saw today...Look what i got home...look what i did with my hat....so many people blogging about these supergrans

Zune - a great out-of-box experience going sour

Moving away from Innocent Smoothies, the second brand I had spoken about in my last post was the Zune. Apparently, Microsoft really did get the packaging right this time. The are loads of reviews out there about the fantastic out-of-box experience and aesthetics. I don't want to repeat what is already there.

What i did learn from all that I read about people's reactions to the Zune (in the context of packaging) was this

- The OOBE tells a lot to the consumer about what he should expect from the product. With Zune, people expected the stereotypical Microsoft packaging - cluttered with needless info. What they saw came as a surprise. It created 2 expectations

a) this is a diversion from the usual microsoft way of doing things - consumer starts to feel positive about the product
b) the design aesthetics are subtly similar to that of the iPod - clean, bold yet stylish - you have set the tone for the consumer to compare your offering against your competitor even before using the product.

There is nothing wrong with both the above expectations. Provided the product experience the user has matches the initial euphoria he has on seeing the pack. Unfortunately that did not happen with the Zune. Many recounted nightmarish installation experiences. The over simplified installation guide and lack of tech support at such a critical time only added to that negativity.

Learning
- Packaging sets the tone for what consumers expect and how they slot the product.

- Manage expectations. Product images on the pack raise consumer expectations on how products would turn out (especially in case of categories like food). If you are showing some exceedingly yummy food shots, your product better taste that yummy too. Honesty goes a long way. One good thing about the Zune pack was that the size and thickness of the Zune player was rightly depicted on the pack. Many applauded that honesty especially since 'size and weight' are considered critical to the category of portable music players

- Consumers pick up cues from the pack size / shape / colours / dimensions - on where to slot / position it and what other products it is pitched at. For instance, in India most of the detergent brands have packs that are blue in colour. When we researched a food product that has a similar blue - many consumers at the first glance dismissed the pack we showed them saying that it looked like a detergent pack and it could not contain food. Other cues they picked up were that if the pack showed a glass with milk - it meant that the pack contained milk that is to be consumed cold, while if the pack showed a shot of a mug with milk - that mean - the pack contain a powder to be mixed with warm milk - because one cannot hold a glass full of warm milk without a handle

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Read more about innocent supergran hats here
If you are looking for initial reactions to the Zune, you will find some of them here and here

Packaging Research,Zune,innocent smoothies,supergran hats,

Packaging elements that work

2006-12-12T18:36:00.000Z

Every since I brought home the innocent smoothie carton, I have been itching to do a post about packaging. It brought back some interesting memories from a packaging research I was part of. Trying to check whether consumers understood the key benefit of the product, I remember asking a woman in one of those interviews

What do you think the person who designed this pack is trying to tell you? What was their intention? And the lady replied…

They are trying to tell me never to read this pack. I tried not to laugh knowing I was being watched by clients and asked her with a very serious face….

Sorry I did not follow what you said…And she added…Now you only tell me…who has the time to read all this technical information these days…

She said what most people feel. Packs are boring, cluttered with too much information, almost designed ‘to never be read’. I don’t know yet the fate of that pack we were researching; it is still to be launched. Though I distinctly remember the prototype. The faces of that carton were being treated like prime real estate. Each square inch of that space was filled with symbols, logos, nutritional guidelines, the ingredient list and tiny pictures to symbolize the ingredients, and that was not enough there was the brand charter about 60 words of highbrow talk – and in two languages! And…there was a tiny quiz game - an arcane question, the answer to which had to be found on the pack. Honestly, we did not need to do research to find out the pack was too cluttered but even the slightest suggestion to do away with any of the pack elements would get the marketing team cringing. For them all of it was non-negotiable territory…all of it had to be there!

Isn’t it a twisted logic…first we create clutter and then we spend a lot of time and money trying to figure out…how to break the clutter.

Of the many packs I have seen in the last one year, two elements have stood out in my memory.

- The Sainsbury wheel of health.

o A simple way of depicting the nutritional guidelines. They use colour coding instead of having to look at numbers

o Moves the information from ‘back of the back’ – associated mostly with boring technical information nobody wants to read – to front of the pack where it catches the attention at the first glance.

o The colour coding uses colours that all of us already have associations with – the colours of the traffic signal – red on the the wheel means, stuff that should be eaten sparingly - since it has far greater amounts of nutrients than what is the recommended daily allowance (RDA). More green on the wheel means that the amounts are in line with the RDA– stuff that is good for you.

- The second being the copy on the innocent smoothies pack

o Simple, easy to read, warm and talking to you in the first person. Makes you want to read.

o Sounds authentic. In synch with their brand values. You believe what you read.

o The font they use on the pack looks friendly and so is their language. You have fun while reading it. Look at what this person found at the bottom of his pack. Mine had an innocuous rhyme :)

If you want a reminder about what not to do with your packaging – watch this youtube video about how Microsoft would design the iPod pack. Contra expectations they seem to have done well with the Zune packs. More about that and some more innocent smoothie talk, tomorrow.

Learning: Consumers are also humans. Talking to us like human beings might help :)

Packaging Research,Sainsburys,Sainsburys wheel of health,innocent smoothies,

We need real world search engines

2006-11-24T16:15:00.000Z

Some months ago, I was at home flipping channels on my TV mindlessly, waiting to get to a channel of my choice...the wait seemed endless. Navigating through 108 channels is no mean task and more than anything else a waste of precious time. What made the situation worse was that each time i'd memorize the numbers of my fav channels or pre set them in a sequence, the cable operator would do something to scramble it all up (yeah he didn't like me very much).

Anyway, on one of those days instead of cursing the cable guy, i sat back and started thinking...about how finding things is always such a pain!!! Whether its the news channel that you want to get to or that brand of whole wheat bread which has exactly 8% fibre....you HAVE TO go past a whole array of things you don't want to see. I fantasized about how life would be if i could just speak to my remote control and say...go to NDTV...now ! Or if i could just enter a super market and i'd have my 'lady in waiting' to get me JUST what i needed. (i know 'the lady in waiting' does not wait at a super market but its my fantasy and i am allowed to bring whoever i want).

I stopped fantasizing when i realised its not an altogether absurd idea. Argos has been doing this since 1973. For those not familiar, Argos, is a catalogue retailer - you walk into their store, you go through their catalogue, write down what you want on a slip of paper, pay, and wait to collect your goods. All this happens in under 30 mins ! And to think of it - i spend more time than that buying grocery!!! It cut shorts the 'time required to make a decision' because you are browsing through their fat catalogue not at their shop but in the comfort of your home...and if you see it you'll know how many SKUs they are dealing with.

Why don't we have catalogue grocery stores ? Makes sense to me - since after i have decided on what brands / product variants i want to buy - i don't need to see the product every time i'm buying it. I can always check for new versions in their catalogue - space that marketers could use for promoting new products.

This morning i read Susan's post about how we are all sinking under the information deluge and feeling guilty about not being able to keep pace - and what opportunities could arise for businesses as a result of this trend. Her post sparked a thought in my mind...if only we had search engines in the real world....in a world marked by needless and excessive choice...it would make living so much easier.

The Argos model is an indication of how 'real world search engines' could function. Its not without reason their tag line says ' Dont shop for it.. Argos it' ....now where have we heard that before? Google?

Argos,infoglut,infoguilt,real world search engines,

Remaking adverts - reviving familiar elements in communication

2006-11-16T09:04:00.000Z

Happened to see this old YouTube video today that I am sure most people, who grew up at about the same time as me in India, would remember. Before the advent of satellite TV, there was only one channel to watch. Those were the times with little clutter and media spend decisions simply revolved around getting the prime time slot. Consequently the range of ads and infomercials that we saw during those times enjoyed and still continue to enjoy, tremendous mindshare amongst consumers.

The video reminded me of an ad research I was part of some time ago, where a new brand entering the market targeted at kids, was trying to take the animation route to break clutter. Animation per se as a route could break clutter purely because of its novelty but there was something going against the ads that were being tested. The brand launch was going to be a global one and ads had been developed by an agency outside the country. It goes without saying that the situations depicted and the characters were alien to the audience. Each frame by itself was not difficult to understand but to decode the message behind the ad, they would have had to make the mental connection between the scenes which people were not able to ladder up in their mind.

When I saw the youtube video today, which happened to be an animation, I wondered why no agency has used elements from that video to develop any tv commercial around it? And logically extending that point, why don’t we see remakes of old ads.

Ads from the past, not only evoke the feeling of nostalgia associated with a brand and make us feel all warm and cozy about it but they also contain associations around brands that become indelible with the passage of time. Elements like…Mummy bhook lagi hai…bus 2 minute (Jingle for Maggi) or the swirling Nirma girl stopping the passer by are all too familiar. And who can forget Lalitaji from the Surf Excel ad?

And if you thought it was just the nostalgia factor at work, Caroline Whitehill talks about how brand associations get hard-wired over time in her write-up about how neuroscience is transforming research…

Why for certain familiar brands, people still talk about advertising campaigns from ten years ago…. Neuroscience has shown us that it takes a long time to create connections. But with repetition and over time, cells that fire together repeatedly become literally physically soldered together. Neuroscientists say 'cells that fire together are wired together'. This process takes at least two years and is known as hardwiring. 'Brand associations that are already consolidated in long-term memory cannot be broken off

We do see this happening albeit in a limited way - with the Close-up reviving their old ad jingle to kya aap naya close up kartein hain or Lyril continuing to show the lime freshness through the waterfall as their backdrop. But for every brand & agency team trying to retain elements in their commercials, there are a dozen if not more fresh communication ideas thrown at consumers everyday – which one would probably notice for the short while those are on air but fade away into oblivion in no time. What remains with us are the ones from a time by-gone. In many ways then old adverts are like music, the vintage classics are the ones that are timeless

advertising,brand communication,advertising research,

On Blogfest reflections and Qual Research

2006-11-06T16:22:00.000Z

So the party's over and what a riot it has been! Over 40 posts put up by 9 Bloggers who took time out to write about bathrooms for just about a week. It has been exhausting as all of us admit, but it has also been interesting to read so many diverse perspectives in such a short span of time. And it has proved to be an excellent forum for ideation - thoughts developed as we went along the way and one thing led to another to build the momentum. Thanks to Susan and Stephanie who sparked this all off and all the rest who joined in.

As i recover from all the weeks activity, I wonder how effective this is as a medium to get quick and focussed consumer feedback. I had written sometime back about reasons that make blogs a serious market research tool. If we look at 'consumer-speak' as companies would find it on blogs, though information of this kind is spontaneous, unsolicited and less likely to be fraught with postured responses and that is what makes it valuable. the content may / may not be the blogger's most recent thoughts about a subject, the blogger may not have spoken about what exactly the marketer is looking for and more than anything such information is dispersed. Though it is possible to search and find people who have blogged about a subject the exercise may be too tedious and time consuming. Reasons like these and many more may discourage marketers from looking at blogs for consumer research.

The solution at hand: A blogfest.

Essentially recruit a panel of bloggers (and like traditional research, you need not keep market research professionals out of it in the fear that it may skew responses since researchers are consumers too and sometimes the more picky ones thanks to all the research they do). The more diverse the panel, the better. Rope in people from the field of communications, product design, advertising, research, marketing or just a bunch of creative college kids. They do not have to be all consumers of your product as long as they are aware of what is being spoken about and have a perspective to offer.

Agree on a time frame that suits most people.

Give them time to plan their posts, gather material. If it helps give them homework activity - having to visit the supermarket to familiarise themselves with your brands, category or go observe people at the local McDonalds or Starbucks. Whatever it is - make it fun!

Orient them to the topic. Give them some sort of a background, share with them the questions that your product team has been grappling with, your marketing objectives etc.

....And have them start blogging posting each day / several times a day and cross linking to each other to show development of thoughts. Encourage people to post pictures, quote real life experiences, upload audio-video clips...what ever they need to do to get their point across.

It would help to have a quick online meeting in the chat room some days before the fest, to exchange thoughts and just to avoid repetitive posts. You could also stop mid - week to review what's been happening and ideas / topics that need more fleshing out / have not been taken up by anyone.

If you see the excitement fizzling out, you could throw in activities around the theme to energize the crowd !

And at the end of it - I'm sure you'd have a ton of rich information you'd have gathered that you can work with - and a bunch of exhausted yet happy bloggers!

research method,qualitative research,blogs and market research,blogfest,

Bathroom Blogfest: When signs dont work...its time to ask WHY

2006-11-02T15:35:00.001Z

Consider this…

You want to use the loo. You set foot (there is only space for that) in this rather small place and try to find toilet seat covers…the dispenser is empty. Some kid who got into the restroom before you tried to reach his hand at it and pulled out far too many…now they’re all strewn around the tiny floor space that you are standing on. In any case, even if you’d have found them, isn’t it a pain trying to tear that perforated portion in the centre, while there is that nagging feeling somewhere at the back of your head about how the toilet seat cover has that slimy, slippery texture. (In the absence of the cover) You reach for the toilet roll…wipe the seat with it and get on with your job. While you are at it you try to numb yourself to the bits of moist tissue around the sink & something that smells like a mix of synthetic citrus air freshener, an equally smell hand wash and of course the loo! Now you’re done! There is that squeaky sound as you stand up and your footwear touches the floor surface on which water (and various other things) have dried. But never mind that. You think, I must wash my hands with hot water and soap and get the hell out of this place. Thank god you don’t have to touch the tap after washing hands. It has a sensor. You carefully pull out tissue with the tip of your fingers not to touch anything around it, lest you catch any germs. Wipe and reach for the bin to dispose it… and stop! The bin has this push-down lid. If you need to push it down you need to touch it. This means your hands don’t feel clean any more. Even if you hold the push down lid with your tissue-in-hand and try to dump the tissue in, on release your fingers would still touch the lid…and that’s not a very
comforting though. You think…why don’t I just flush the tissue? You see the sign that advises against it – because it would clog the drain. You still go ahead. Grab another tissue and touch the flush with it – and quickly toss in the last tissue in as the suction works at pulling it. And then what happens is anybody’s guess…eventually the drain will get clogged and if there wasn’t already enough of a mess in there…create an even more of an un-unusable loo. And you don’t want to be stuck in such a situation mid air.

Poor quality wash rooms are never like that to begin with. They also start out squeaky clean. Over time things deteriorate since a) users don’t maintain the facilities and b) more importantly since there is something in there that is coming in the way of users keeping it clean.

- It could be trash bins with a push down lid or

- Toilet roll dispensers with loose covers – which could have led to the entire roll on the floor when someone decided to give it a tug

- Seat covers which have an centre difficult to tear (I still don’t know why they can’t have covers that just outline the rim)

- Or like Susan points out - Hand towels at the other end of the loo – that would have people walk in the washrooms with dripping hands.

The point is these are things that don’t require big investments…but it requires some paying attention.

If you see paper towels on the floor the next time – just stand back and think WHY before putting up a notices likes these

Customers are advised not to throw used paper towels in the bin as a courtesy to others users.

Picture courtesy

Push Down Lid - Flickr, No disposal signage - Gettyimages

customer experience, bathroom blogfest, ladiesrooms,

Bathroom Blogfest : Would you put your money in your bathroom?

2006-11-01T09:35:00.000Z

While more fortunate consumers in some parts of the world talk about issues like softness of toilet paper or adding personal touches to public wash room facilities...in India we deal with base level issues like 'whether the loo is clean' (that is the first question i remember asking anyone who'd visit a public loo - too reluctant to try it out myself) or 'whether there is a loo at all' ?

Untill i started to travel and live out of my country, the notion that some one could invest in clean wash rooms for the use of citizens was alien to me. We grew up learning how to exercise bladder control and made our way to a public wash room / toilet only in dire circumstances . Even as recent as a couple of years back, horrified at the state of the ladiesroom at my workplace and despite many explicit requests to the admin staff I relented by carrying my own toilet paper ! And I distinctly remember how thrilled i was when switching jobs i discovered that the ladies room at my new place of work was well equipped and bright.

Of course the situation is changing slowly - with the advent of Malls, Multiplexes and MNCs, Indians are finally waking up to cleaner wash rooms though establishments offering such facilities are still few and far between.

This throws up several questions in my mind...As we go ahead

- Do businesses need to invest in great looking or even clean washrooms?
- Would a consumer's opinion about a washroom facility, impact his / her opinion of the business it is part of? Or are we so accustomed to bad loos of yesteryears that we'd consider the poor state of wash rooms a given!
- Would the presence and state of a wash room dictate my choice as a consumer i.e. would i chose one restaurant over another based on their loo?

I would be fooling myself if i'd think that the state of a wash room would influence choice...no we haven't reached that stage yet. But that does not negate the other two statements. I don't think i'd decide against going to a mall / restaurant or not join a place of work if it had an unclean toilets, though i know a finicky friend who does check out the loo whenever she goes for a job interview.

But i most definitely would remember an organization / business establishment where i encountered a clean one. And given that there is such a dearth of the such types why would it not stand out in anyone's memory ?

It also cannot be denied that a, well equipped washroom signals to stakeholders that you CARE about them & their most basic requirement.

The question therefore is would businesses want to invest in such facilities and if so, for what in return? When considering such decisions, people need to bear in mind that such investments involve not only a one time effort but a recurring effort not only in terms of money but also in terms of time and energy

Everything cannot be attributed to monetary returns and providing such a facility (at least given current realities in india) creates a strongly positive experience for the consumer. Susan talks about how such facilities register as a part of the total experience and can act as a differentiator to your business. Clean loos in India is not just a 'hygiene factor'. They are viewed as a comfort, if not a luxury by most. People always talk about loo encounters good, bad or ugly. They may not go shouting from the roof tops but the news does get around through whispers.

So if you haven't cared enough to look into the wash room facilities you provide...remember

Clean restrooms = Happy Customers &
Dirt = Disorder

PS - while 10 years back my search for a good loo ended at the Taj, today it is the golden arches of the ubiquitous McDonalds I look for....no matter where i am in the world...and I am never disappointed. Now what does that tell you about customer care & consistency in standards!
__________________________________________________________________

More on bathroooms and customer experience

Susan talks about how even bathrooms count in creating an integrated customer experience using the 4 p's framework

Sara has a few confessions to make & comes up with some real innovative ideas on how to encourage people to 'wash hands'

Stephanie illustrates well designed bathrooms she has comes across here. Don't miss the kid friendly hand wash area

For businesses who dont think washrooms are worth their time and money, read Linda's post that starts with Paco Underhills nerve racking question...Would you want your wife to pee in this place?

Christine has some halloween bathroom horror stories to share

Maria recounts how she is so comfortable with starbucks washroom, that she does not mind working in there.

customer experience, bathroom blogfest, ladiesrooms

Bathroom blogfest week - Restrooms v/s toilets...not just a matter of semantics

2006-10-30T22:11:00.000Z

My most memorable experiences in the loo date back to my days in college when I spent long hours outside of home or college with friends.Our rambling almost always came to an abrupt end with one of us wanting to visit the loo. At that time no matter where we were, we would head straight to the gateway of india...near which is the luxurious Taj Mahal hotel. While entering we chattered loudly about visiting their pastry shop or visiting some imaginary uncle / aunt who was their guest - out of fear - so that the durbaan (concierge) did not take note of us as just a bunch of giggly girls who ambled into the foyer for no reason.

Once inside the restroom however, the fear gave way to fantasy ...for it was difficult not to lose oneself in that brightly lit room, treating oneself to the cold fresh face towels re-stocked regularly beside elegant faucets. There were dispensers that doled out generous portions of rich creamy fragrant liquid soap. One could admire oneself in the many full length mirrors placed at angles that would allow one to make girly comparisons ranging from whose hair looked the best when tossed behind to whose backside looked the worst ! I do vaguely remember that those rooms had fresh flowers that completed the circle of luxury for me.

Honestly speaking, for those few minutes (read 20) i spent there - I felt like royalty. Luxurious bathrooms or even tastefully designed bathrooms, atleast in India, have been regarded a luxury a privileged few have access to. I don't know the reason - whether it is cultural or habitual or just the state of development in the country - but bathrooms & toilets have for long been neglected terrains. Public facilities are best left untouched (in more ways than one) here for the unsavoury memories they conjure up but even in people's homes and in some cases even rich homes, the toilets i have seen have been a let-down. It could be because of the strong notions of 'purity' that people held on to - not just in the physical sense but also in a cultural sense (cleaning of toilets were considered menial tasks confined to people from the lowest castes). It was also for this reason that historically toilets and bathrooms found their place away from the main house - in a courtyard.

Coming back to the loo at the Taj Mahal hotel, apart from the grandeur that obviously comes with 5 star standards, what was memorable for me was - that it was a place where i did not pinch my nose and rush out. It was a 'room' a place where i did not mind spending time. In fact it was a place where i felt good spending time. It's not without reason that those facilities were and still are referred to as - 'Restrooms'. More than a matter of semantics, words like restroom / powder room / ladies rooms connote an experience.

Learnings

It's not always possible to rush to a Taj and let's face reality that there are only a handful 5 star facilities but it's possible to recreate the same feeling

#Strip the bathroom of that clinically clean / industrial look.
# Introduce Pretty lamp shades instead of jarring white tube lights

# Place Mirrors set in beautiful frames
# Keep Fresh flowers...and if that is an avoidable chore...potted plants are good too
# Embellish with Pot pourri / paintings / beads and baubles - anything to give it a little personal touch

What I liked about this tile border, apart from the cheery sunflower design, is the detailing at the centre of the flowers...those stand out from the rest of the border giving it a 3- D feel.

This bathroom has soft yellow lights, ornate lampshades and even a little ceiling fan - truly adding to the comfort and making it look very personal

customer experience, bathroom blogfest, ladiesrooms

Air carriers, Down-grade benefits, & customer delight…

2006-10-22T10:25:00.000Z

Last week Jet Airways downgraded my frequent flier membership tier from Platinum to Gold. The large pack that was handed over to me by the courier delivery boy (containing my Frequent Flier Goodies) took me back reminiscing about the good old days when traveling 3 days a week had become a norm and I could reel out airline schedules if woken up in my sleep … but what was I doing with this pack if my tier has fallen a step?
I expected it to contain a handbook with the usual information and was about to chuck it in the bin when I flipped through the papers and was delighted to see ‘3 complimentary business class upgrade vouchers’. These vouchers are usually given to frequent fliers as part of their tier upgrades.

So was this a mistake or was it sent intentionally? Well honestly I do not know. Though I knew that…

As a customer I was delighted
As a customer I was still ‘Valued’ (even though I did not fly with this carrier as often as I used to) – I had not been written off

At a time when there is a glut of cheap, low fare, no frill carriers in the market – here is one that will stand out in my mind for offering ‘a positive experience’ around flying. The airline industry not only in India but also across the world is seen as offering consumers rock bottom prices in a bid to woo them. Of course the rock bottom prices come with little or no service offering. While this tactic works well with the self-financed traveler – it leaves out the chunk of business traveler who is not price sensitive and values comfort or even luxury over economy. Price cuts are tactical, easily replicated by competition and progressively erode the bottom line and brand value. Wooing consumers instead by creating small subtle differentiators around their travel experience and making them feel special goes a much longer way.

Another air carrier that has successfully created such subtle yet important differentiators in their service offering is Kingfisher Airline.

With KF their consumers are referred to not as passengers but as guests. This is not just a matter of semantics. It reflects an attitude - evident in the way the KF staff treats its customers. Step out of your cab at the terminal and you’ll find a KF staff member appear to help you with your luggage into a trolley and right through to the point when you have checked those bags in. What I value the most about KF is their consistency - that it is the only organization I have encountered so far that does not penalize the consumer for lack of clarity on the how their policies are interpreted. On this one occasion I was trying to get my ticket postponed. The response I got from the call centre was that I could get it done at the airport, while at the airport I was told that since my ticket was a free ticket it could not be postponed at all. When I told them the call centre staff had mentioned otherwise – the lady at the airport enquired with her supervisor and came back with the response – ‘we do not normally do it but since the call centre staff has promised you this – we’ll keep up their word’. And if this is not all if you have any service issues feedback mails sent by you are read by the chairman himself.

And now for some mentions – ‘not so positive’…

While thinking about what annoys me the most about air travel I arrive at two areas that are top on my list

a) Long winding instructions (and especially if you are in a multilingual country) repeated in 2 – 3 different languages. Why can’t they keep their language simple, informal and instructions short. For instance – instead of saying ‘please continue to remain seated till the aircraft comes to a complete halt’…why not say – please keep seated till the aircraft halts… I am sure the sentence can be edited even more
b) And secondly - why don’t they have gender specific restrooms on board? If its not enough that there is such a paucity of space in the restrooms – the thought about & experience of using the unisex restrooms makes me want to never get on an aircraft again. I am sure the information on the number of male / female passengers is captured while people are boarding and it’s possible to allocate 1 or more of the restrooms exclusively for women depending on the traffic.

Taking about restrooms – we have a blog event coming up towards the end of the month called the Bathroom Blogfest, where women bloggers would be posting about their experiences around the ladiesroom and how these can be designed to make the experience better. You can find more details about it here and here.

customer experience, Jet Airways, Kingfisher Airlines, ladiesrooms

Right here! Right Now! - The use of ‘present tense’ in narratives

2006-09-22T13:22:00.000Z

Narratives are powerful as a data collection tool in qual research. Story telling is interesting as much as it is intuitive. We all are used to hearing and narrating stories.

The process of story telling in research brings forth - the tiny juicy details around a consumer’s experience that can make any researcher’s day! These nuances are what make one consumer’s shopping trip or washing moment different from another. In a researcher’s quest for attaining a near perfect understanding of the consumer’s experience - it goes without saying then that more the details recalled while narrating an incident – the more vivid is the description and proportionately higher is the understanding and appreciation of such an event.

Story telling most often happens in retrospect and narration most often involves use of the past tense. But what were to happen if we were to take the less beaten track and start narrating stories in the present tense.

While writing about my experiences some days back I found myself oscillating between tenses. On the one hand – rules of grammar learnt in high school forced me to use the past tense, on the other hand I found writing in the present tense helped an easier recall of the tiny details that served to bring the story to life.

When we narrate in the present we relive the moment while narrating in the past is analogous to recall. When we recall something – we are distant (to a certain extent) from the emotions that are associated with an event – it is like watching a sepia toned image in an old photo album. Reliving is experiencing the event with its emotional paraphernalia.

(Taking a bit of a detour – the present tense is actively used in psychotherapy in dealing with repressed emotions / memories – to aid subconscious feelings and emotions in coming to the fore and to experience the event in full blast as it were – while when the therapist wants his client to disengage emotionally - the client is often asked to metaphorically see the event in a picture album / tv screen)

This does not mean that just encouraging consumers to use the present tense in narrations would do the trick. Since we are used to narrating in the past tense – it may warrant some prodding / setting an example to / the consumer. Encouraging the consumer to use as many of his sense organs (olfactory / visual / auditory / kinesthetic) as possible would definitely aid the process.

It is not without reason that the use of present tense to narrate an incident of the past is called the ‘vivid present’. Writers have experimented with the use of the ‘vivid present / historical present’ in literature. Why not experiment with it in qual research I’d say?

Describing pain…On how can research be designed to help consumer’s articulate emotions?

2006-09-01T05:00:00.000Z

A tear in my knee cartilage has meant that I frequented a physical therapist – where I was often asked to give a report on the nature and extent of pain I felt.

I started to describe it but something just did not feel right…

I did not have the right words – resulting in a 2 minute long winding sentence - that gave the therapist only a vague idea of what I felt inside

The therapist tried to understand more by asking me questions….which did not do either of us any good

Was it a stretch or a pain? I could not discern

Was it bearable / unbearable? Even if it is bearable – what does that tell you – my threshold for bearing pain could be far higher than that of another individual

How would you rate it from 0 to 10 where zero is no pain and 10 is the maximum?
How do I know what maximum pain feels like? It certainly is not zero, but unless I don’t know the maximum where do I pitch it on the scale?

The whole experience reinforced two things I have known and learnt but haven’t paid enough attention to – perhaps the first hand experience was necessary to appreciate the nuances

a) Emotions are subconscious. Emotions surpass language. Language offers a surrogate way of understanding emotions but words cannot totally and accurately describe what one feels. Try articulating - what you feel when you feel happy / what it means to be in love...and you'll find yourself grappling for words

b) Emotions are felt and sensed as an amalgamation of visuals, images, sensations – its difficult to isolate these sensory perceptions and describe them individually. Also some of these sensations are so subtle and so much beyond our conscious understanding and expression that even if you know how you feel – translating it to words for even a reasonably articulate person is quite an uphill task

All this makes me now a little more sympathetic and sensitive towards research respondents who say ‘I just cannot describe how I feel on seeing this ad’ or worse still remain silent or say I don’t feel anything at all. Those are not just respondents behaving lazy or indifferent. Those are very real flaws in the way we question consumers and design research.

Visualizing emotions may help – asking consumers to close their eyes and
Describe what they see, hear, smell
Where in their body they see it
The colors / images they see or the sounds they hear etc

An exercise in visualizing emotions could not only make it easier for consumers to articulate those – (rather than trying to answer a blanket question like what do you feel?) but also it could offer cues that could be used in designing communication.

(Where is the emotion felt in the body / how it is seen inside etc – for instance adverts for pain relieving tablets often show pain in originating from the affected part in concentric circles and warm colors)

Doing this exercise while the consumer is mentally relaxed with his eyes shut – would mean a greater probability that his focus / attention is inward driven

If getting a rating on the emotion is crucial to the research design then design a scale that is more consumers friendly. This is one good example I found (read last para) where the scale uses everyday experiences from the consumer’s life as benchmarks – rather than abstract descriptors.

This brings me to a related issue – how appropriate is it to compare / aggregate responses pertaining to emotions – since emotions are a very subjective an individual experience, perhaps also influenced by the cultural set up one is part of.

For example – one child understands of pain or happiness - could depend on his experiences / what he is made to understand about pain by his peers or influencers, the physical, emotional, social environment he grew up in.

I guess this would deserve some more reading and another post.

Brand exposure – How much is too much?

2006-07-19T19:02:00.000Z

A cluttered marketing environment forces marketers to come up with innovative solutions to makes their brands seen. I’m beginning to wonder whether in the world of brands does the concept of ‘over exposure’ and the ensuing ‘consumer annoyance’ and the theory of diminishing returns hold true – or is it a matter of plain simple arithmetic

Greater Exposure = Greater no of touch points for the consumer = higher brand recall = Greater likelihood of brand in the consumer’s consideration set = Greater possibility of purchase

If I look at it as a consumer I would perhaps like to be reminded about
A) A brand at the point of purchase or
B) During the process of consideration (evaluating alternatives).

Some one please tell me…

Why would I want to be told of new content on TV while I am cooking breakfast?

Or think of what sun tan lotion would suit my skin while I am in a loo

Or the next time I need insurance - would I ever think of taking insurance from this company just because they hang a board outside my apartment politely telling visitors to not park in the driveway. I would not!

Don’t get me wrong. I do believe in the power of salience and its residual effect on my purchase but in an effort to make your brand visible don’t barrage my world with disconnected, meaningless exposure. There is a greater likelihood that efforts like this this and this which push the brand in my face and on my egg will result in residual discontentment.

The arithmetic is simple – though the from where I see it the equation looks a little different

To me…

More disconnected exposure = More clutter = Higher Irritation for the consumer = Greater numbness to ‘in your face’ advertising = More money and time spent on finding newer avenues for brand visibility = MUCH More clutter…

Untill today - I did not know such a word existed!

brand exposure, brand salience,

So what does a qualitative researcher really bring to the table?

2006-07-09T19:19:00.000Z

It is not uncommon to oversimplify qualitative research as an approach and the contribution of the researcher to the process. Two or three key factors contribute to this widely held belief.

The flow of knowledge around commercial qualitative research has for a long time been oral tradition. Researchers learn by observing and practicing what they observe on the job.
The industry has very relatively fewer entry barriers. Researchers could have a background in any of the social sciences or management disciplines at the least. At the worst it could be field investigators graduating as interviewers and moving on to handling entire research projects.
As a discipline it is open, flexible in its approach and draws from many related fields and most importantly is evolving continuously. An eclectic approach like that makes it a complex task to commit to paper the tenets and the boundaries that define this discipline.

With the result that many a times – what is often a complex and well-thought out task gets reduced to this widely held belief

‘After all what is scientific about talking to a bunch of women over coffee and cookies and how difficult can it be’

True. It is in principle not a difficult task to chat over a cup of coffee but what one would get as a result of such a conversation is questionable. So if it is not just chatting over coffee and cookies – what does a (good) qual researcher really do?

A good qual researcher over time, acquires an intense understanding of two worlds – one being that of the consumer and the other that of the client. Her immersion in these two worlds results in her becoming fluent in the language and culture of both these domains.

And the skill is not just in having an external awareness of this expectation. It is being aware of it and internalizing it till it becomes second nature. It is holding both these positions simultaneously and constantly moving between them

This constant shift of perspectives keeps happening within the mind of the researcher ALL the time.

From the time she is designing research – thinking about how best the clients need for information would be met keeping in mind the kind of the consumer segment being targeted.

To the info gathering stage – where mostly in a matter of 2 hours – she needs to get a bunch of strangers in a room not only comfortable with her but also with each other –enough to create an open and safe environment for them to air their views and respect the differences and yet not so comfortable that they digress to talking about whatever they feel like.

She has her mind (If I may put it like that) split into many fragments. A part of it is constantly evaluating how much headway she has made vis-à-vis what she has set out to achieve. Through another she has her eye on who amongst her group of eight have / haven’t had enough air time. Who dominates and needs to be managed, who needs to be encouraged, how to break the cycle of group consensus when she sees evidence of that or how to deal with spontaneous emotional outbursts on part of a respondent without losing time and yet not making the respondent feel alienated. She has her ear finely tuned in to catch subtle statements made by respondents that lie just outside the scope of research but could throw light on a significant part of the information puzzle if explored in detail. She makes a judgment call about which of these threads to explore and at the cost of what, which ones to ignore and what she could lose as a result. Then there could be chits being sent in from the client viewing room prodding her explore something. Many a times it could be a topic that has been discussed and closed. How does one re-visit it without losing time? Sometimes it involves making a snap decision to let it pass. And most of all while she is constantly evaluating her alternatives – she needs to make sure that she keeps her bunch of respondents perked up through the two hours so that they don’t lose interest in the discussion and start thinking about their kids back home or what’s to be made for dinner.

I recall some sessions I witnessed where the researcher had completely lost herself in the interview with a woman from a fairly low socio economic background. Within minutes, the researcher had put her at ease, latched on to her lingo, incorporated her slang, adapted her line of questioning to reflect her situation, mirrored her posture and her way of sitting and to an outsider it seemed like it was one woman talking to her confidant – not a respondent to a researcher. Within minutes of the interview getting over – I saw the same researcher talking to her Dutch client. Her language reflected an understanding of his business. She had translated the information she had gathered from the respondent to what the implications it had for their marketing team, neatly summing her crisp inferences to findings that were not only interesting to hear but also relevant and actionable.

Doesn’t all this call for more skill than a simple chat over coffee?

qualitative research, qualitative researcher, on being a qualitative researcher

If a ‘Logo’ is considered sacrosanct in the Marketing Bible…does that make Google blasphemous?

2006-05-26T10:41:00.000Z

Something this evening reminded me of a discussion I was part of - in which my client’s marketing team intensely discussed the packaging of a new brand. Of all the things I heard that day, one thought etched out of the cacophony and remained in my memory since then.

What sparked off the discussion was how the brand name would (or rather should) feature on different product variants which had varying pack sizes. The hour long discussion came to a close when someone, presumably whose word counted a great deal, said that the taller packaging would have to be discarded. There was silence in the room…as much had already been invested in developing the prototype and testing a new shape would mean that they would have to go back to the drawing board – the resultant loss of time could prove lethal for a new brand. However….these words echoed in the silent board room

The manner in which the ‘Brand Name’ is displayed HAS TO remain uniform no matter what. It is our message to our consumer. We cannot be seen sending out such diffused signals.

I never questioned that thought…until today when I sat up suddenly and thought about what Google seems to have done with its branding. We have all become used to seeing cute inclusions every once in a way. What creates more excitement around these doodles is the fact that they do not appear at predictable intervals. So one fine groggy morning when you open your browser you see something different that cheers you up.

I am not sure what the motive was behind creating these holiday logos or whether they was any serious motive at all or whether it was all done in the spirit of being ‘fun’ ‘cool’ ‘refreshing’… ‘anti establishment’…but what I find most fascinating is how they have so simply done away with something that’s was considered so fundamental to branding.

So what sort of signals do changing logos send to the consumer? Well, the way Google has gone about bringing about these changes so seamlessly only goes to show that changing logos do not necessarily translate to different messages as long as the organization is consistent in communicating their over all philosophy or values. At least as a consumer, I did not notice a perceptible difference in the last 6 – 7 years or maybe I was just slow in my reaction to this issue. The message I get when I think about it consciously is that – here is an organization that challenges pre-defined ways of doing things and also more importantly an organization that is not ‘in-ward’ looking.

It’s a greater marketing sin in my mind, to keep these basic elements intact but have a portfolio of brands / products that are taking off in different directions.

Will the ‘logo’ by and large still be considered immutable or will we see more organizations experimenting with their branding elements in the days to come? It would be interesting to watch.

You can see their archive of holiday logos here. The site even has some even created by Google Fans though I never liked any of the latter.

Google Logo,Brand Logo,Branding and Logo

Was Einstein a Qual Researcher too ?

2006-05-23T10:34:00.000Z

Found this quote by Albert Einstein...which was like music to my ears!

I have had this discussion ad nauseum with fellow researchers from the other side of the fence (read quant) and sometimes very senior researchers in the rank...try to emphatically argue how its futile to judge the effectiveness of one discipline by a yardstick designed for another. No matter what, there will always be people ranting about the 'subjectivity' of qual research and questioning its validity and reliability, disregarding the fact that that the beauty of qual research is not in 'proving scientifically' that people behave in a certain way but....in bringing to the fore some of the complexities of this behaviour. What would we achieve by just understanding that 8 out of every 10 people who shop at a super market purchase on impulse without understanding

- what goes through the mind of the person who grabs a bar of chocolate at the till or
- why they picked up 20 $ worth of stuff that was not on their shopping list and did not even realise it untill they reached home.

Many a times I fight tooth and nail when confronted with this issue but on some occassions when i dont see any sensibility at the other end...I just say a silent prayer 'Forgive them lord for they know not what they say'

qualitative v/s quantitative research,qualitative research,quantitative research,

9 reasons that make blogs a serious market research tool

2006-05-19T14:29:00.000Z

1.That consumers do express opinions about their experiences surrounding products on blogs

2.That other consumers read these opinions and to a certain extent trust these messages more than they would trust marketing messages since these come from an independent source and not the marketer

3.That opinions on blogs are unsolicited, spontaneous expressions by the user and there is a greater likelihood of finding the truth here - about what users think about your brand – than you would find in a focus group

4.That the immediacy of this medium is unbeatable. Blogs tend to be updated frequently…once in a few days, sometimes even several times in a day and there is a greater likelihood of finding immediate responses here than you would if you’d commission a research project

5.That once an opinion is expressed on a blog, it spreads very very quickly

6.People are more honest about their beliefs and opinions on this platform since the medium lends itself to protecting the identity of the blogger many a times. There is a greater likelihood of finding brutal criticism against your brand / product that you would not find within the contrived research setting

7.That information found on a blog about your product / brand - is not information in a vacuum. You can freely read the bloggers opinions / beliefs about other issues expressed on his / her blog to draw conclusions about what the person values in the larger context – without causing him the inconvenience of incessant interrogation.

8.That even if you will not read this information…may be your competitor will

9.That it’s there…up for grabs…easily and freely accessible and searchable!

Some food for thought….

Opinions on blogs are a gold mine of information since this medium has not been exploited enough yet and therefore it gives access to unedited, spontaneous thoughts (almost like a blogger’s stream of consciousness). As marketers start looking at blogs more seriously and bloggers become aware of this, would there be a tendency to post postured and socially correct responses even on this medium. Would the feeling of ‘being watched’ come in the way of a spontaneous expression of though!

And what about the intellectual property on such an opinion? Could marketers ‘freely’ and ‘without permission’ use information available on blogs to their commercial advantage?

research method, qualitative research, blogs and market research,

Reached an Impasse?

2006-04-26T08:04:00.000Z

I came across this post on methodological woes that got me writing this one…

The problem described there is not uncommon. Quite often one finds oneself in a situation asking a bunch of respondents with sheer passion and enthusiasm to recall an incident / offer an opinion and – all you hear is – I really don’t know. There is nothing I remember that I can tell you. – And it’s heartbreaking to hear that as much as it is frustrating.

Sometimes, it could just be a result of Lazy Thinking on part of the respondent. But there is a bigger possibility that the details / events that one wants to hear about – are not particular significant in the respondent’s life. There is only so much anyone can remember and people do not want to waste precious memory on some political event in 1999. So what does one do?

The method used in the case with the woe is ‘focus groups’. I have nothing against focus groups but - my understanding is that doing depth-interviews can offer not only a more intimate environment for the person to talk about how the event could have impacted them, but would also allow a researcher - greater freedom to build rapport, probe and explore – since she is not affected by angry and bored looking respondents watching her, which could happen in a group. Also, when one person in a group says they don’t remember anything significant - it could rub off on the others who may fall prey to 'group think' since no one really does want to make the effort of jogging their memory.

The timeline / track back approach does help - I have found it working better - when going backwards from the most recent year - since a free trip of nostalgia may just take them back to the memories that are significant in their life - and those may not be necessarily the ones you want to hear about. A rather structured approach - going back year on year and encouraging them to recall details - is what I have followed - though the style of the interview has been Narrative - telling the respondent - 'tell me a story about your life' as opposed to - 'what happened next / then what happened etc' - which may seem like a memory exercise and tire them out.

Some other aids you could try in such situations are –
• Taking the help of photos they may have from that year or a visual / imaginary - opening up of a photo album exercise - to aid recall. If you are doing the visualization, have a script ready and one that will encourage the respondent to use as many ‘senses’ as you can
• Interviewing a family unit - as opposed to the individual - that will allow you the advantage of people building on each others memories as happens in groups - yet their past would not be very different so as to pull people in different directions.
• And lastly if you / anyone in your team are qualified - to put the respondent in trance - it greatly aids recall especially mundane / insignificant details which we all tend to forget. Though using hypnosis in research is fairly niche, it does have its merits.

research method, qualitative research,qualitative research and impasse,

Prologue….or Monologue!

2006-04-14T22:52:00.000Z

Not once…but most times I have interviewed consumers for Market Research…I have had to mindlessly explain to a bunch of bored looking housewives why I am sitting there with a camera pointing to them.

(Only recently I discovered that it was mandated by the Market Search Society of India to set a preamble to the discussion).

There are few occasions however, as I have gone through the motions of my boring speech…something in me has jumped out (well...almost) pestering to grab my attention and despite my incessant efforts at trying to banish this rebellious thought…has persisted enough to almost form a paralleled mental process.

Here is some anecdotal evidence in support of what I am saying…Enjoy!

Hi…My name is Reshma and before we start the discussion let me give
you a brief introduction

(Oh crap! Here we go again…)

The company I work for, we don't make or sell anything… we just meet people like you and take your opinion on the products that you use and your opinion is very
crucial to the companies who make these products. Once such company
has sent me here today

(and today being the key word…since last morning I found out that I if I don’t come here TODAY something earth shattering would happen)

and this company is into making

(well…what should I say about them…they make LIFE SAVING DRUGS and they have put it into research TODAY…since they have ONLY until tomorrow find out about the results and so they have sent me here to talk to all of YOU about)

… JAM !!!

To this some one from the groups asks - trying to make conversation and sound intelligent…Madam Jam…wohi khane wala (JAM...the one we eat)?

I put on my warmest smile since it is just the start of the discussion and don’t want to piss them off…Haanji wohi …aap ne kaise guess kar liya? (oh yes! how did you gues s that)

(You are sooooo intelligent…Yes it is JAM…that hideous looking pink blob...)

***********************************************************************

Then there are times when I’ve been at the same place so often that I’ve seen the same faces in the audience for researches that I have done on tea…jam…biscuits…you name it …and they use it!

‘Repeat Respondents’ as they are known in the industry or ‘professional respondents’ like they fancy calling themselves can fit into 2 categories….actually 3.

The soft spoken ‘mama types’ the ones who nod their head as you give your opening speech for the (n+1)th time…even though they have heard it only two days ago…they have such a concerned look on their face…almost to say…haan beta mujhe pata hai tum par kya guzar rahi hai ! (I know what you are going through, love) They are by and large 'nice'. They behave themselves at the discussion, even try to answer intelligently...make my job easy...I don't have anything against them.

The other category is the ‘marketing savvy….I know all the jargon’ babe. These can be real pests and talking to them can be a real test of anyones patience

Your opinions are very important to us…there is no right or wrong when it comes to an opinion…so feel free to express what you say

Haanji yeh sab hume pata hai…ab group discussion shuru karein
(Ya..ya we know...now can you start the discussion)

Haan jaroor…abhi 5 minute mein shuru kartein hai…par uske pehle mujhe aap logo ko kuch dikhana hai (Ofcourse we'll start in a bit but i need to show you something before that)

Haan dikhaye…jo CONCEPT BOARD…dikhana hai (Ya...show us the concept board you have)

Come...sit here...take my place...is what I feel like telling them...and I'll happily take yours!

The third slot is reserved for the real duhs! They’ll be the ones who as soon as you enter the room would say….

Aare Madam Aap…aaj itne dino baad dikhayee diye…
Madam You…Seeing you after a long time…

(While trying my best to not recognize her…and trying to drop big hints her way by nodding my head to say yes and no all at once I say) Achha…Main…Nahin…Shayad Koi Aur Hoga (Me - You may have seen someone else). But Duh is what Duh does…so Duh does not get the hint...since she is looking into the camera and waving & smiling...as though it were a live telecast

Aare…Kaise nahin yaad hai aapko…abhi 2 hi to hafte hue hain…kailash cllony mein to hua tha group…wohi kissan wala!
(How come you dont remember. We must just two weeks back at the Kissan group)

(SSShhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh…dumb woman…your live telecast is my client sitting in the backroom!)

***********************************************************************

Though I’ve fretted and fumed when these incidents have happened…in hindsight many a time they’ve saved the day and given me some interesting stories to narrate when I am back from the travel.

Categories: Humor_

humor, qualitative research, qualitative research and humor

All the worlds a stage...

2006-04-14T22:50:00.000Z

Over the last couple of weeks, I have repeatedly found asking myself one question…whether the online medium does justice to qual research. Both, my thoughts about this and the idea of doing online qual research itself are too nascent to arrive at anything conclusive yet, though my brush with it so far has left me with a few residual thoughts.

I am beginning to realize that good qual research is like theatre. Much like the script of a playwright, the vision of a research comes to life at the moment of interaction between the researcher and a consumer. The script is only the starting point for a performance…it is not to be confused with ‘the performance’! And the performance is not just a mere summation of the elements. It is that and a little more. This little more comes as a result of a dynamic process of (non-verbal) interaction between an actor and his audiences. The audience is as much a part of the creation of this magic.

Theatre requires an audience. For all of the arts public is essential. The physical presence of an audience can change a performance, inspire actors, and create expectations. Theatre is a living breathing art form. The presence of live actors on the stage in front of live audiences sets it apart from modern day films and television.

Elements of Theatre

Good qual research exudes this dynamism…this magic, a kick that researchers usually feel at the end of an insightful consumer interaction. It’s a feeling in the gut…that one has got it right…made some headway. That feeling is subtle, perhaps not a conscious one. Once cannot pin-point the exact point in the course of interaction where the researcher starts connecting with the consumer and goes beyond the surface. But the feeling is there nevertheless. To approach qual research as a ‘boxed product’ (a set of open-ends that would give you ‘feel data’…which will answer some of the how’s and the why’s for the marketer) to be executed in a standardized way is missing out on the magic.

Which brings me back to my question…does real qual research have to be a live interaction? I think so. The difference between online and face to face is the difference between seeing reality that has happened a couple of minutes or couple of hours ago and experiencing reality as it happens…in a myriad ways.

It’s the difference between a live theatre performance and wrapping the emotions of that performance on a 35 mm reel.

In a live performance the audience is entranced -- their disbelief suspended. This requires the audience to further utilize their imagination and their creative abilities. The reactions to the work can have an even greater impact. There is an energy that flows both ways.

Some actors cannot or will not do stage plays due to the subjective emotional and physical intensity of this form of stagecraft.

The audience experiences a "Human-to-Human" event, an intimacy that is created only with this medium. Finally, when you see live theatre you will experience something that is unique . . . an interpretation or even a once-only performance that results in a brilliant act of serendipity that may never be seen again!

What makes the 'Live Theatre' experience unique

In my experience of doing qual research, I have found many parallels to the description of a theatre performance given here ….the uniqueness, the energy, the intensity, the experience of intense involvement at the exclusion thoughts like where you are, who you are talking to & the oddities in the environment, the play of emotion….can all be very draining but all the same very addictive!

Categories: Online Research_ , Metaphors_

research metaphor, qualitative research, online research,

A Research Metaphor

2006-04-14T22:49:00.000Z

An unsual metaphor that explains differences between qualitative and quantitative research in a very interesting way.

Qual Research

Full of colors and shades and layers
Reflecting personalities
Life Like
Unique
Something that has a mind of its own
Capable of changing its course mid way
Art
Encourages deviations or a creative approach

Quant Research

Full of patterns
Reflecting facts
Scientific
Replicable
Precise
Structured
Also art, but not free hand…
more like an engineered art
Encourages conformity

Categories: Metaphors_

research metaphor,qualitative research,quantitative research,qualitative v/s quantitative research,

Online Research - To do or not to do - that is the ?

2006-04-14T22:46:00.000Z

I have had another brush with online qualitative research. This time it has gone beyond the two dimensional and asynchronous experiments using a discussion board into ‘real time’ and synchronous interaction with users. In the capture of information and emotion, the interviews turned out to be far weaker than I had imagined. This had little to do with the technology being used. All the basic elements were in place – both the respondent and moderator were connected to the internet via broadband at a reasonably high speed since the connection did allow a voice and video transfer. Yet I found something amiss and that was the magic or the ‘intimacy of a person-to-person interaction.’

I have always strongly believed that this element (the creation of an intimate and unthreatening environment) is one of the two critical aspects to good qual research, the other being the decision on the research method to be used.

The difference between online and offline is, I reckon, like the difference between meeting a friend in person and talking vis-à-vis talking over the phone or talking using a webcam. I am assuming one would on most days prefer a meeting in flesh and blood over a virtual one unless of course distance separates them and there is no choice but to meet in the virtual world. Now I know that talking to a researcher can in no way be compared to the feeling of bonding with a friend but the difference between the two interactions is one of degree and not of type. In both these instances, the virtual meeting seems fainter in terms of exchange of emotion, there is a restlessness to move on since many extraneous factors get in the way and the interaction is feeble where it comes to the expression of non verbal cues and para-language – the last two factors help us ‘make sense’ of what we hear. For instance, the sentence ‘could you send me the documents please, I am waiting’ could be a plea or an assertion depending on the tone and the manner in which the person spoke, along with his or her facial gestures. Though online interviews do capture tone and manner of speech to a certain extent, that is assuming there is no lag in voice transfer, the richness of non verbal cues get lost in frozen images that refresh every once in a few minutes. The presence of a time lag cannot be ruled out altogether and it only adds to fatigue for both people in the conversation. Besides, the fact that one has to constantly speak – pause – hear – pause – speak which can get difficult to keep track of, it breaks down the flow of energy that is created with the natural build up of a conversation. As an observer of an online interview, I found that the moderator was finding it difficult to keep the respondent engaged.

It is relatively easier to keep the respondent engaged and involved in a real world context, since in real life two people sitting face to face often tend to mirror the reactions or body movements of one another. Very often at a restaurant, you’d often find yourself picking up a glass of water, after the person sitting opposite you has done so or vice versa, though till that point, you did not feel the urge. Similarly it is easy to get a person’s attention in an interview by altering your posture – sitting upright or looking eye to eye can often shake the boredom or fatigue that respondents may face.

This lack of control extends beyond the respondent, even to the research environment. Face to face research often happens in a contrived environment and it is almost second nature for a researcher to draw the curtains (to block of excess light) or shut the windows to keep the noise at bay – in her preparation for the discussions. In the virtual interviews, I observed that one had little control over the presence of others in the room, excessive lights that obscured the video transfer, and the clack-clack of the keyboard as the respondent exchanged a line or a smile with his online friends as he aired his views. This has been a classic debate with many researchers whether it is easier on the respondent to be spoken to in the comfort of his own home environment. Though the usual one way mirror research facility is contrived, it scores points, since there is only so much that you can tell a respondent in his home – without sounding rude or completely putting him off.

Warts and all, online research techniques have made some headway, in fact I would not be wrong if I say that it’s becoming the next big buzz word in the research circles. But that’s where precisely the problem lies – when a ‘method’ starts to gain importance and overrides other elements in the research design. For me qual research, has always been, a discipline for understanding the world in which people live and the closer the research method is in reflecting this reality, the better is the understanding. So, online techniques should be like any other, used judiciously. While trying to explore public opinion about a company or a product, reading blogs or discussion boards or other online content about them is like taking advantage of the information that is ‘already there’ and putting it to use. But when the online medium is pressed into service where conventional research techniques could have been used, comparisons about its efficacy are bound to happen.

Categories: Online Research_
qualitative research,online research,

What do I do for a living - Demystifying Qual Research !

2006-04-11T19:46:00.000Z

What do I do for a living…hmmm…good question!

Some days back I met somebody who asked me – what is it that you do for a living… and I could not help but think hard about that! Of course – the answer was given to him without a blink

I…I am a researcher…a marketing researcher…I help companies ‘understand their consumers better’ so that the products they make are more meaningful to consumers and add more value to their life…blah…blah…blah…

Even before I could complete my sentence, my thoughts fell into a tizzy and I found myself asking me the question….

Is that really what I do?

The next two days – I introspected about and observed the way my day was spent and here is an account of what happened

Day 1 – 8.45 a.m. – get picked up by my boss for an early morning meeting

9.30 a.m. – meeting begins – topic of discussion – women whose husbands suffer from cholesterol – how would our product meet their ‘needs’ – after an hour and a half of deliberation – the outcome of the meeting – marriage is a façade behind which thrive the ‘unequal’ relationships between a man and a woman – lets play up this difference to sell our product – lets meet ‘the needs’ of the woman by providing her with the companion she does not have

1.0 p.m. – client realizes (1.5 hours) away from when the group discussion is scheduled with the women… The venue that we had chosen…is too dark…too dingy…too down-market. Why not have the group discussion right here? My thought…good thought…but could you not think of this…5 days back when we asked you whether we could use your 5 star venue for the group discussion? Anyway the thumb rule is – never question the client’s motives…ironical considering that ‘questioning people for their motives happens to be my job!’

1.0 p.m. – 3.00 p.m. – these two hours that I spent I felt like the pendulum of a giant grandfather clock – only one that had lost its mind – since I was swinging in many different directions all at the same time – trying to keep the women who had arrived for the group discussion happy – now that the discussion was delayed by an hour – trying to trace the camera person who was caught at the security gate of this 5 –star hotel – which at that moment felt like was the HQ of the CIA or something – considering it took us more than an hour to get the security clearance – and trying to placate a rather angry boss spewing fire at me – ‘I don’t care how you do…get the whole thing started in 5 minutes’

My thought …but boss…I forgot my magic wand at home today

My action – go down to the flipping reception and find out where our camera guy is caught!

Me – can u trace my camera person – who is caught at your security gate

Receptionist – if you tell me which security gate maam – I’d be glad to assist you

Me – (if I knew which one – why would I come here…duh)…I actually don’t know which one it is – could you call both and find out!

Receptionist – they are at gate B – go to the elevator on your left down this hallway and press ‘B’ for basement

Me – go to the elevator – press ‘b’ – the elevator moves – then it stops – and I wait – and I wait – and finally the door opens after much waiting – and lo and behold- (I have visions of the camera man in the clutches of the security guard where I go and rescue him and take him up to the discussion room)- but hold on…this does not look like the basement and I don’t see any camera person – all I see is the same reception smiling back at me – WHAT! I am at the very same place I started 5 minutes ago – SHIT!

Me – didn’t you tell me that was the way to the basement?

Receptionist – If you could tell me where exactly you want to go maam – I would be in a better position to help you with directions

Me – but didn’t you just tell me…did I not tell you basement…never mind!

I run up to find (much to my relief) the camera person has found his way up.

3.30 p.m. The group discussion starts –

3.45 p.m. - I need to run to office to write a presentation that’s tomorrow morning at 11.00 a.m. I have exactly 2 hours to make some headway on the presentation before I need to come here again for another discussion with men – the guys with the cholesterol problem

4.15 p.m. – in office – trying to get started – when my field person enquires in absolutely disgust – after changing the venue at the last minute – I hope ‘your client’ has arranged for dinner for the respondents.

My Response – of course he will! (let me just message him and check…just to be sure)

4.2o p.m. – SMS from client – I cannot afford dinner for ‘your respondents’ at the hotel – pl arrange for alternative

My respondents! My client…my presentation (that I have not even begun – how did I get myself into this mess) …oh MY God!

4.25 p.m. – frantic call to client – he has the gall to not take my call

4.35 p.m. – another call to client – oh please…please…please…take the call

4.45 p.m. – now I am desperate– pick up the phone…you…!

5.00 p.m. - I’ve spent almost 45 minutes in office and still not written a slide on the presentation.

5.30 – I manage to write 3 slides…3 measly slides…next group in an hour…let me call him once again. This time…he picks up…the heavens have finely decided to take pity on my fate…or did I say that too soon…?

Me…Hi…its me xyz…can I talk to you now?

Client…ya go on…!

Me I just wanted to check with you about dinner for ‘our’ respondents

Client…Did you not get my message…I can’t afford dinner!

Me…(I got that duh…that’s the reason I’m calling)…yes I did…but we generally serve dinner to men…especially since this is a high profile group.

Client…Yes but I can’t afford it…why don’t you hand them some food packets

Me…(food packets…you mean food packets…you must be out of your mind)…no we can’t serve food packets

Client – so why don’t you order in some pizza from dominoes. That’ll be fast and cheap

Me…Pizza hmmm (muttering under my breath – these men have high cholesterol – and you want me to feed them PIZZA…why don’t I order some pizza and stuff it up your…)…er …we can’t serve outside food in the hotel here.

Client…(behaving absolutely obnoxious)…so then take them to your office and serve them dinner there and give them a little gift incase they feel they have been short-changed

Me…(you bet they’d feel short-changed…these are not little kids we are talking to…that we could make them happy with goodie bags or return gifts...these are MEN at good positions in good companies who are spending their Monday evening talking to you since you invited them…to help you sell your product better…blah…blah…blah !)…Never mind…I’ll think of an alternative

6.00 p.m. – oh shit…its 6 p.m. and I’m still here – I should have been at the venue now. I hear the bosses words ring in my ears (I don’t want any goof-ups on the second group…as it is the 1^st one started late…I’m leaving this place at 8.00 p.m. sharp…my son does not have dinner without me…blah..blah..blah)

6.08 – have flown out of office and jumped into an auto…

(shit…traffic…why…did I mail the presentation to myself to work on it from home…home…I don’t know when was the last time I spent some quality time at home…why doesn’t this traffic move…I hope the respondents are on time…I hope I can finish on time….i should be home by 9.00..think I’ll be able to start working on the presentation at 10.00 and work for a couple of hours…or maybe I can write a few slides now…nah…never mind…shit we haven’t moved an inch…damn…the traffic!)

6.35 p.m – at the venue…phew! The mad-pendulum swing begins …

6.45 p.m. – 2^nd group starts…I still need to figure out what to do about ‘dinner for respondents’

7.00 p.m. – at the coffee shop of the hotel – me, my colleague and the field co-coordinator

Me…Can we have a look at your menu

Manager – Maam – why don’t you have a seat?

Me – we actually haven’t come for dinner…we are just trying to arrange dinner for 6 people who’ll be here at 8.30 p.m.

Manager – ok…here is the menu

Me…- lets serve them soup and salad

Colleague – but that’s not a complete meal…how about a dessert?

Me…but that way we’ll not be within the budget…a soup and a salad itself would be 600+ and we need to keep it within 500 per person

Field co-ord – how can you expect MEN to have their dinner on some soup and salad?

Me…and my colleague…okay…lets think of something else...how about birayani…what about your buffet…what about…why is everything so bloody expensive

The field co-ord…in utter exasperation…I’ll pay from my pocket…if the respondents don’t have a good meal…its not ‘your’ client who will earn a bad name…its out agency that will!

All this while the manager – who has been a silent spectator to our predicament – now intervenes

Manager – Maam can I ask you a question…what is your budget…(gosh I hate the sound of that…it reminds me of the broker who helped us find a house on rent)

Me…we need to arrange for dinner at under 500 per person

Manager – okay – how about I serve them a soup…a choice of veg /non-veg biryani and a choice of desserts from the buffet for a flat fee of 500

Me…would that include taxes

Manager – yes maam!

Collegue…wait…lets go and check out the desserts…they seem ok…why don’t you thrown in some salad too

Manager…no maam…I am sure you understand I am already offering a lot for the price

Me…(thoroughly embarrassed)…I think that’s very nice of you sir…we’ll go with that

Collegue…no I don’t mean a portion of salad for each person…just two large bowls would do.

Manager…ok maam…I’ll do what I can

Me…(oh my god…were we just bargaining at a 5 star hotel…for dinner…which we are not even going to eat ourselves…what has life come to!)

8.30 – group discussions ends

8.45 – 9.15 – meeting with client…outcome of the meeting – we were just superb on that one…I think the product will sell....this is just what they need….blah…blah….blah

10.00 p.m – reach home dog tired…head splitting with a migrane!

10.20 – after having had a micro-waved read meal – crash!

5.00 a.m. – alarm rings…me….zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

7.00 a.m. – woken up by the thwack of the news paper on the door….almost feels like a slap across my face for not waking up in time.

7.05 – 9.20 – write presentation

11.00 a.m. presentation starts and goes on as smoothly as spreading butter that is melted just right!

12.00 noon – presentations ends…(and nobody knows I spent just 2 sleepy hours in the morning – thinking of what they should do to win over their consumers)

1.0 p.m. - need to be at the venue for the 3^rd group…the clock strikes one…time for the pendulum to start swinging again !

After thought - People who grew up at around the same time as me – would definitely have some recall of the tata steel TVC – we change lives…we build bridges…we also make steel!

Cant help but end with this thought…yes and I also do research!

Categories: Humor_

humor and qualitative research, qualitative research, on being a qualitative researcher

About me and this blog

2006-02-22T10:29:00.002Z

Through my blog and my work, I explore links between marketing messages, how consumers interpret those messages, the conscious and subconscious factors at play & the role of market research understanding these two divergent worlds.

During the past year - I have focused on using 'online tools' in research and exploring new possibilities in the emerging world of online research. I have been involved with work that warranted - the use of community discussion boards, conducting web based interviews and mining blog data.

An Independent qualitative researcher - when I am not working on research projects I spend most of my time thinking, dreaming, reading and blogging about it. I was most lazy about my high school essays due to which my family and friends are shocked about my interest in writing and continue to believe I employ a ghost writer. Much to their amazement and mine I have started taking up writing assignments on research.

One thing that people don't know about me (and it's a delight to see their reactions) is that I am a hypnotherapist. Yes! I am serious and it's not all hocus pocus.

Email me : reshma(dot)paritosh(at)gmail(dot)com