By Michael Miller, Content ConsultantMichael Miller, Content Consultant

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.

Differentiators

• Experiment with quantitative• Numbers

• Closed-ended questions seeking

information

• Deductive

• Objective

• Explore with qualitative• Words

• Open-ended questions seeking

descriptions

• Inductive

• Subjective

Explore for what exactly?

Explore for the phenomenological

Phenomenological

?

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?

Strategic Inquiry

Strategic inquiry techniques

Researcher and author John W. Creswell recommends 5:

• Narrative

• Phenomenology

• Ethnography

• Case study

• Ground theory

Top contenders for qualitative research in ad development stages:

Concept testing

Real usage

Focus groups

Projective techniques

Field work

Strategic Inquiry

Inquiry As InstrumentQualitative 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).

Strategic InquiryUncovers 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

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.”

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

Strategic InquiryGauging 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?

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?

Neuro Inquiry

“Nueromarketingis 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.

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.

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 AnalyticsMajor companies like Gatorade are monitoring social media 24/7Monitor for polarity: target strong negative or positive sentimentsSocial Media culture more about sharing experiences, opinions and expertise than selling Remember that A,I,O is constantly evolving

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

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

Main Street research:American Consumer Opinion® Online

Panel Consumer Expenditure SurveyGoogle Consumer SurveyNielsen Retail Index

• Triangulation of rich social media content with primary and secondary data sources can distill a sample to enhance its accuracy.

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/