2. Marketing Research
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Introduction
• Definition of Qualitative research
– Its role in Market research
– Its relationship with Quantitative research
• Its application
– Its key areas of effective application
• A Qualitative researcher’s persona and skills at work
• Instruments of Qualitative research – its specifics modalities
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Essence & Value of Qualitative
research
• Qualitative research explores and understands – it unearths the “Whys”
• Its basic tenets : open-ended, dynamic, flexible, penetrates
rationalized/superficial responses, has depth of understanding, taps
consumer creativity, provides richer inputs for marketing and creative
teams
• It plays its role when the marketer wants to find out reasons underlying his
consumer’s behaviour
• Limitation of this research approach is its limited sample coverage and
therefore it becomes inappropriate to state conclusions based on the
Qualitative data interpretation
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….contd.
• Qualitative research provides insights into ‘WHY’ of the human mind, the
‘HOW MANY’ of the target market part is best handled by Quantitative
research
• Quantitative and Qualitative researches are different in their methods and
research objective and provide conclusions with different data
• Both approaches are not substitutes for each other, instead, they
complement each other
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Application of Qualitative research
• The key types of studies/research problems that require the use of
Qualitative research are Basic Exploratory Studies, Diagnostic Studies,
New Product Development Studies, Communication Development Studies
• From Qualitative data one must seek not only in providing rich descriptions
of complex phenomena, but look for constructing or developing theories
and in generating hypotheses to explain the phenomena under study
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Skills of a Qualitative researcher
• Core personality attributes of a Qualitative researcher are sensitivity,
empathy, and a keen sense of logic
• Other important requirement is good articulation (both verbal and written)
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Research Instruments
• Key stages of research are brief taking from the client, then working out
a research proposal, working out a recruitment questionnaire, then
detailing the probing process in the format of a Discussion guide, finally,
converting all findings and analysis into a Presentation format
