Further Qualitative - a review of all the qualitative strands and extension material.

1. Marketing Research & Social Communication
Lesson 14
More Qualitative Research
Ray Poynter
1Ray Poynter, Marketing Research & Social Communication, 2015

2. Agenda
1. Updates and last week’s quiz
2. Key words
3. Qualitative research
4. Big Picture
5. Quiz and assignment for next week
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3. Updates
• Please tell me if I speak too fast 
• http://newmr.org/saitama-2015/
• Previous Quizzes – all previous quizzes, i.e.
Lesson 3 onwards, now on the website
• No dictionaries in the exam
• 70 questions, one hour, 31 July, 1pm
• Extra lesson opportunity, 24 July, 2:45-4:15
Decide today!
• Review of last week’s quiz
Ray Poynter, Marketing Research & Social Communication, 2015 3

4. Key Words
• Moderator: the person conducting a focus group,
depth interview, or looking after an online discussion.
• Focus Group: a discussion with 6 to 12 people, using
the group situation to explore a research topic.
• Depth Interview: discussions with individuals to
explore topics in more depth or in a more sensitive
way.
• Online Qualitative: conducting qualitative research
via the internet, e.g. online focus groups or online
discussions
• Ethnography: studying how people live their lives,
using observation to gather information.
• Qualitative data: all the inputs used by qualitative
researchers, including voice, notes, recordings,
images etc.
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5. Sources of Qualitative Data
Qual only
– Focus groups – currently the most common
– In-depth interviews
– Online discussions
– Accompanied shops
– Ethnography
– Semiotics
Quant and Qual
– Mobile devices
– Social media research
– Research communities
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6. Typical Qualitative Projects
• Ideation – generating new ideas
• Improving TV commercials and concepts
• Understanding current behaviour and
motivations
• Understanding ‘pain points’ and unmet
needs
• Improving and designing usability
• Anything that can’t be measured!
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7. Qualitative Characteristics
Smaller sample sizes
– 6-12 per focus group
– 8-16 depth interviews
– 8-16 ethnographical observations
– 8-16 accompanied shops
Open questions
– What sort of people would use this shop?
– Why might they choose this shop?
– What sort of people would not use this shop?
Counting is largely irrelevant
– Key values are: None, Some, Many, All
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8. Focus Groups
• The most common technique in qualitative
market research
• The moderator and
– 6 people
– 8 people
– 10 people
– 12 people
• Typically 90 to 120 minutes
• Typically 4 to 8 groups
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}Depends on the country & topic
6 very common in Japan

9. Focus Group
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Video : https://youtu.be/POF3m6ZNoiY

10. The Focus Group Process
• Understand the client’s business problem
• Define the population and a suitable sample
– Groups to represent specific target segments –
e.g. young mothers
• Create a discussion guide
• Conduct the groups
– Analysing the discussion and updating the
discussion guide after each group
• Analyse all the data
• Present/report the findings
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11. Discussion Guide
The plan for what the moderator will do during a
focus group or depth interview.
Model 1
1 Warm up
2 Main section
3 Review
Model 2
1 Ask “Who uses X?”
2 Ask “Why use X?”
3 Probe reasons for X
4 Ask “What else used?”
5 Ask “Why use others?”
6 Show new product
7 Ask “Who will buy?”
8 Count who buys
9 Ask “Why buy?”

12. Key Notes for Focus Groups
• Recruit suitable members
– In Japan a group tends to be all male or all
female (true in many other countries too)
• Organise recordings, note taking, and/or
transcripts
• Use the discussion guide to cover the
research objectives within the time permitted
• The moderator needs to be flexible and
should seek to start the analysis whilst
moderating – using probing questions
Ray Poynter, Marketing Research & Social Communication, 2015 12

13. Key Stages of a Focus Groups
• Forming – getting to know each other
• Norming – develop a rhythm to the
conversations
• Performing – the group starts to deliver
information and insight
• Mourning – the moderator closes the
session
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14. Role of the Moderator
• To establish the pattern of the discussion
• To control the flow of the discussion
– Using the discussion guide
– Sometimes slowing the flow down
– In Japan, often, encouraging more participation
• To probe beyond the initial responses
– Eg “Why do you think that?” or “How does that
make you feel?”
• To help analyse the information
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15. Depth Interviews
• The second most common qual method
• Moderator and one person
– Sometimes two people, paired depths (dyads)
• Typically 8 to 16 interviews
• Typically 30 to 90 minutes
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16. Depth Interviews
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https://youtu.be/cLpTRaRlXIE

17. Key Notes for Depth Interviews
Three key uses
1. Where groups inappropriate – e.g. some
sensitive topics
2. Where participants cannot be easily brought
together – e.g. some B2B
3. Where greater depth needed – e.g. in-depth
review of financial dealings (which is also
sensitive)
Time consuming and expensive
Key tools: discussion guide, briefing, voice
recorder
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18. Focus Groups or Depths?
Focus Groups
– Where interaction is good
– Where members SHOULD influence each other
– To tap into experiences
– Example: Explore the problems with drying
clothes on wet and humid days
Depth Interviews
– Individual stories
– Where the differences are important
– Or where things are sensitive
– Example: How do people get into debt

19. What is the key to Qual Sampling?
Participants who are representative of types
of people
– We are not looking for a mathematical match
to the population
– Usually we want people who are typical of their
‘type’ or group
– E.g. 2 groups of housewives, 2 groups of
married women who work, 2 groups of single
working women (In say Chiba and Osaka)
Good recruitment is very important to good
qual

20. Other Qualitative Methods
• Diaries & smartphone diaries
• Online discussions
• Social media approaches
• MROCs – market research online communities
• Ethnography & smartphone ethnography
• Accompanied shops & wearable research
• Semiotics
• Usability labs
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21. Diaries
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Typical diary study one week, sometimes one day,
sometimes several weeks.
Can also be quant, if the questions numerical and the
sample size larger.

23. Online Discussions
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24. Trip Advisor
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25. TripAdvisor – the Numbers
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26. TripAdvisor – the Words
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27. TripAdvisor – Good & Bad
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28. Ethnography
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How does a queue form in Starbucks? How does it change when
more people arrive? What do people do in the queue? How does
the queue impact other behaviour?

29. Semiotics
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30. Qualitative Analysis?
DATA
Words
Notes
Audio
Pictures
Video
Body language
Useful
Story
Transcripts
Drawings
Social Media

31. The Stages of Analysis
1. During fieldwork, develop and test ideas
2. Organise the data
3. Categorise the data, e.g. into themes/
codes/ ideas/ concepts
4. Explore patterns
5. Find the main messages – the big picture
6. Look at segments for differences (e.g. users
versus non-users, young versus old, etc)
7. Interpret the concepts, patterns and
difference
8. Report the story you have made

32. A Useful Explanation
• Qualitative research does not seek an
‘objective truth’
– Many qual researchers would reject the idea
that an objective truth even exists
• Qual seeks to explain what is happening,
why it is happening, and how it is happening
• Qual seeks to deliver a ‘Useful Explanation’
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33. Can We Believe What People Say?
• Not necessarily
– Which is one reason we have qualitative research
• Good qual does not report what people say
– It interprets what they mean
– And, the reasons they believe what they believe
– And, why they say what they say
– And, what organizations should do in response
• Tools include
– Body language, analysis of language, projective
techniques, and indirect questioning

34. Two Common Problems?
1. Reducing the data too much
– A powerful story needs the customers’ voices
to come through
– It should not just be the researcher’s voice
2. Not reducing the data enough
– Don’t just tell the client what people said
– Don’t produce lots of stories
– It has to be interpreted

35. Dealing with Subjectivity
• Qualitative research is subjective
• We need to recognise subjectivity as part
of the process
• We do not ‘discover’ the story
– We CREATE the story
• The quality of the research is flows from
1. Understanding what respondents have
shared
2. Creation of a useful story
(useful to the client)

36. The Validity of Qual
The validity is based on whether it is useful
– Not on whether it is ‘true’ in a science sense
2 key indicators
– Coherence: does the story make sense?
– Triangulation
Triangulation
Taking other information into account:
• Previous studies
• Published information
• Client knowledge

37. Ethics in Qualitative Research
1. Participation is voluntary
2. Informed consent
3. Do no harm
4. Clients need to know the extent to which
they can rely on the information
5. Think about the impact on 3rd parties
Especially with ethnography, images,
recordings, and passive data collection
Ray Poynter, Marketing Research & Social Communication, 2015 37

38. Key Words
• Moderator: the person conducting a focus group,
depth interview, or looking after an online discussion.
• Focus Group: a discussion with 6 to 12 people, using
the group situation to explore a research topic.
• Depth Interview: discussions with individuals to
explore topics in more depth or in a more sensitive
way.
• Online Qualitative: conducting qualitative research
via the internet, e.g. online focus groups or online
discussions
• Ethnography: studying how people live their lives,
using observation to gather information.
• Qualitative data: all the inputs used by qualitative
researchers, including voice, notes, recordings,
images etc.
Ray Poynter, Marketing Research & Social Communication, 2015 38

39. Big Picture
1. “Not everything that counts can be counted.
Not everything that can be counted counts.”
Albert Einstein
2. The focus for qualitative research is
meaning
3. Focus groups and depth interviews are the
main tools, but there are many other options
4. Don’t report what people say, report what
they mean, and what clients should do as a
consequence
5. The rise of ‘big data’ seems to be increasing
the demand for qualitative research
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40. Before Next Lesson
1. Think about any questions you have?
2. Review your notes
3. Review past quizzes
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41. Questions?
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42. Quiz Lesson 14
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