Qualitative Research

Focus Groups & Triads
The purpose of qualitative research is to see and hear your target audience discuss, in an interactive, dynamic fashion, the topics of interest (i.e., your products, new product concepts, the image of your company) in order to provide more insight, or a different perspective, than can usually be obtained in the rows and columns of numbers generated by a quantitative study.

The focus group concept originated in clinical psychology as a device to get people to "open up" through the synergy or dynamic that only group discussions can create. Anyone who has been in "brainstorming sessions" in their company knows that they can be a great source of ideas and solutions to problems, as one thought can generate an idea, which in turn generates another idea, and so on. It's this same type of dynamic that makes focus group discussions so effective for many types of research studies. New product testing and advertising testing are two very common types of research for which focus groups are used in order to gather valuable feedback and generate ideas.

Triads are very small group discussions (triads are three participants but also often refer to any group of 5 or less), that are conducted at the end of a project, such as when only specific refinements to a new product concept, or a communication campaign, are needed. In such cases brainstorming and new ideas are not the objective; instead, the focus is on specific and in-depth feedback, which is more difficult to obtain when 10-12 people are talking as in a larger focus group. Thus, the number of participants is pared down and the focus is on eliciting specific, in-depth, well-thought out answers to just a few specific areas of questioning. The result of these types of discussion sessions is very focused, in-depth and clear feedback which typically provides very specific direction for the company.

Needs Laddering
Needs laddering is a technique that springs from the work of Abraham Maslow and his concept of self-actualization. In needs laddering, target customers are interviewed in groups of three to five individuals by a moderator experienced in this approach. The moderator probes for motivations, feelings and values regarding the purchase process of the particular product or service category being explored. Through the course of the interview, the respondents' associations with the product are gradually elevated from basic characteristics (for example, for software products, IT managers may say "reliable") through personal benefits and values relating to the experience (for example, "reliable" may lead the respondent to 'less hassle in my day-to-day work', then to 'less hassle helps me maintain my focus on the important issues of our company'), and finally to some form of validation ("I feel smart," or "I feel like I'm a valuable employee and person in our company"). In the analysis phase, a decision tree structure is created that visually maps the core user associations.

The result of this in-depth examination leads to the identification of the optimum position for a company by illustrating the range of customer-relevant characteristics of the experience, from the very literal to the emotional and subjective. In creating company messages, it is these emotional and subjective needs, rather than the basic needs, that are much more powerful in generating interest, sales and customer loyalty.

Needs Laddering Pyramid

				“I feel like I’m a valuable person in our company”
				“Can focus on the important issues of our company”
				“Less hassle ”
				“Reliable”

Metaphor Groups
Metaphor groups are the creation of Gerald Zaltman, and is a very interesting method for digging deeper and drawing out the kinds of feelings that are typically missed in focus groups but are nonetheless extremely important to finding out why people buy certain products and not others.

Respondents are recruited and asked to spend one to two weeks thinking about how they would visually represent their experience with a company, product or service. They are also asked to find images from magazines, or other easily clipped media, that in some way convey those experiences. Once these images are gathered by the respondents, they are asked to come in to the research facility and , in a one-on-one setting with a trained interviewer, tell stories about the images. This method can be very effective because it gets past the surface discussion and delves into much more deep-seated emotions. These emotions are often what truly drives a purchase decision, even though people may not even realize it, and thus can be very valuable for companies to identify. Focus groups may not reveal these types of deeper emotions, and thus would miss key components in building communications messages and branding strategies.

One-on-One Depth Interviews
One-on-one depth interviews have become much more popular in recent years, as an alternative to focus groups. These interviews are very much like focus groups in that the respondents are interviewed in a relaxed setting, in-person with the interviewer. The difference, of course, is that only one respondent is interviewed at a time. There are several reasons why one-on-one depth interviews can have advantages over focus groups:

1. The respondent is not influenced by the need to conform to group norms or to avoid embarrassment for "unusual" responses.
2. The respondent is the sole focus of the interviewer's attention and therefore is more likely to open up.
   
3. Because of the intense involvement of the interviewer, the respondent is highly focused and therefore yields richer data, more to the point of the study.
   
4. Other types of interviews are brief, and in a focus group each individual has a very limited amount of time to speak. In a depth interview, the respondent has 30 or more minutes to talk about the topic.