Objective reality takes a backseat to subjective reality. Traditional methods such as strategic inquiry are adapting with market research online communities to form a cost-competitive and advanced research terrain that rivals neuromarketing trends.

1. By Michael Miller, Content Consultant
Michael Miller, Content Consultant

2. Quantitative as surface research
“The objective reality, favored by quantitative
researchers, is abandoned to the assumption
that people construct their own personalized
worlds.”
John W. Creswell, author and researcher
It’s now hip to share our personalized world.

3. Differentiators
• Experiment with quantitative
• Numbers
• Closed-ended questions seeking
information
• Deductive
• Objective
• Explore with qualitative
• Words
• Open-ended questions seeking
descriptions
• Inductive
• Subjective

4. Explore for what exactly?
Explore for the phenomenological

5. Phenomenological
?

6. Phenomenology philosophically
approaches studying our experiences as
they are subjective and determined by the
context in which we live.
It’s a big differentiator between applied
quantitative and qualitative research.
Explore for what exactly?

7. Strategic Inquiry
Strategic inquiry techniques
Researcher and author John W. Creswell
recommends 5:
• Narrative
• Phenomenology
• Ethnography
• Case study
• Ground theory

8. Top contenders for qualitative research in ad
development stages:
Concept testing
Real usage
Focus groups
Projective techniques
Field work
Strategic Inquiry

9. Inquiry As Instrument
Qualitative researchers
Are the instrument relying on their skills to receive
information in natural contexts
Uncover meaning by descriptive, exploratory, or
explanatory procedures.
Qualitative researchers agree
Numbers impress, but unfortunately, also conceal far
more than they reveal.
With Davis’s (2007) observation that “good qualitative
research has equaled, if not exceeded, quantitative
research in status, relevance, and methodological rigor” (p.
574).

10. Strategic Inquiry
Uncovers Bias
A few years following P.R. nightmares, Toyota and
British Petroleum
Examples of a Quant viewpoint:
 Toyota ranks 3rd in market share among
auto manufacturers
 BP ranks 35th out of 96 in market
capitalization
 Forbes ranks BP sixth in the world among
global oil companies

12. Toyota and BP
Bias uncovered:
If a crisis management pollster monitoring public perceptions were to ask me
HOW LIKELY I was to buy a Toyota and fill it up with petro at a nearby British
Petroleum station, my
answer would still be…
…NOT LIKELY.”

13. Bias Confirmed: Inductive reasoning can theorize that I don’t trust
how these companies handle crises in the public domain.
What do other people think?
Pollster furthers
explores “whether I am
bothered about
Verizon turning over
cell phone numbers to
the government?”
I respond that I am
more comfortable
giving my business to
transparent
companies.
Strategic Inquiry

14. Strategic Inquiry
Gauging the “court of public opinion”
Toyota ranks 29th on Fortune’s list of Most Admired
Companies top-50 list.
B.P. doesn’t rank on the list.
Consider the corporate climate…
Top Trends from the Global CSR RepTrak™ 100:
• Only 6 percent of respondents perceive the top 100
companies as good corporate citizens
• Only 17 percent of respondents definitely trust what
companies promise in their advertising and marketing
• Only 19 percent of respondents trust what companies
say in official reports
Does this leadership perception look familiar?

15. A Gallup poll says
only 15 percent of
Americans
approve of
Congress’s job
performance.
Why the enormous trust gap between
corporations, organizations, or entities as a whole, and
crowds?

16. Neuro Inquiry
“Nueromarketing
is based on the
idea that focus
groups are not
reliable. People
sometimes don’t
know what they
like.”
-Sally Satel, M.D. and author of Brainwashed: The Seductive
Appeal of Mindless Neuroscience.

17. Neuro Inquiry
Neuromarketing
Scientists found buying centers in the brain.
Coined by Ale Smidts, a professor at Erasmus University in
Rotterdam, Holland, in 2002.
Research was first developed in the 1990s.
One recent discovery in neuromarketing is that Apple
products triggered insula levels, or the pleasure zones, in
the brain.
Costs $1,000 per hour to brain scan with fMRI, according
to Forbes.

18. Neuro Inquiry vs. Strategic Inquiry
Is what consumers say more
valuable than what they’re
subconsciously thinking?
“Reputation is emerging as the Number One driver of value”. -
Kasper Ulf Nielsen, Executive Partner, Reputation Institute
Social Media Analytics
Major companies like Gatorade are monitoring social media
24/7
Monitor for polarity: target strong negative or positive
sentiments
Social Media culture more about sharing experiences, opinions
and expertise than selling
Remember that A,I,O is constantly evolving

19. Strategic Sampling
Qualitative research has inherently
strong, developmental qualities as primary
research
Crowdsourcing is an example of how the
Internet has revolutionized developmental
research
Latest crowdsourcing evolutions include
Marketing Research Online Communities and
Online Qual Tools

20. Strategic Sampling
Sample selection principles
• Purposefully select participants or sites and
go for (online) immersion
• Goal is to best understand the problem and
the research question.
• Not about random sampling or selection of a
large number of particpants and sites, as
typically found in quantitative research.
• Do not pursue emperical verification

21. Main Street research:
American Consumer Opinion® Online
Panel
Consumer Expenditure Survey
Google Consumer Survey
Nielsen Retail Index
• Triangulation of rich social media
content with primary and
secondary data sources can
distill a sample to enhance its
accuracy.

22. Recommendations
Recommended Reading:
Using Qualitative Research In Advertising:
Strategies, Techniques, and Applications. 2nd ed. (Thousand
Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 2012)
Recommended Searching:
MROCs (Marketing Research Online Communities), Online Qual
Tools
Recommended Joining (LinkedIn ):
Online Qualitative Research: The Next Evolution
Recommended Linking (LinkedIn):
www.linkedin.com/in/michaelmiller9/