Bryan Urbick Bryan is co-founder, CEO and Chairman of the Consumer Knowledge Centre. He worked previously in marketing and product development in the food industry and the banking/financial services industry. Read the full biography here.

All Mixed Up

...or how to be random and disarming

By Bryan Urbick - 9th July, 2010

We are a small qualitative consumer research specialist, using traditional and non-traditional techniques. Our work focuses predominantly on children and their mothers, as well as at the other end of the age spectrum, “Prime Timers” (consumers 55+). Our experience has been built over a number of years, and rather than using a technique and then discarding it for a newer, flashier approach, we have developed quite a tool box of potential ways to tackle client research objectives.

One of the very first projects we worked on, some twenty years ago, shone a revelatory light on something we had presumed to be true: that the shortest way to get from point A to point B is to follow a straight line. Whilst this is true in mathematics and appears reasonable in everyday life, we discovered it is not the case in market research - certainly not when it comes to qualitative work. We have found that sometimes a more circuitous route is a better way to find the true insights. It is with our target consumer specific groups that we have had plenty of opportunities to put this theory into practice, though it can easily apply to all consumer segments.

As research has evolved and morphed over the years into numerous sub-disciplines, we have witnessed the straight line leading to the ‘solution’ becoming longer, more convoluted and at times studded with knots. Yet time and again, as researchers we tend to seek to avoid the more circuitous route and aim for a direct response achieved via a direct question. Sometimes our clients may insist on this point, as it is often easier to feel as if we have a direct answer if we ask a direct question. If only it were that simple.

No wonder focus groups are often regarded with disdain. What does the consumer know?

When budgets are tight and time is scarce, the path of least resistance is to pull some focus groups together and ask the participants a few well thought out questions that effectively reassure the marketer that they are pointing in the right direction. Sometimes, though, if we ask the question in a different (or ‘wrong’) way, we may feel that we are heading towards disaster. No wonder focus groups are often regarded with disdain. What does the consumer know? Henry Ford’s famous remark about if he asked his clients what they wanted, they would have replied ‘faster horses’, is all very well. It is worth de-constructing a focus group and looking at how we, as researchers, approach similar questions: do we instil a ‘faster horses’ response, or do we dig deeper?

Certainly if we ask a direct question we can often almost guess the direct answer. Are we just asking the question to seek confirmation or are we after something deeper and more meaningful, something that potentially is hidden even to the consumer?

In our work we have noticed a very strong trend over the recent 18 months. Companies are demonstrating willingness to go much deeper; they really do want to find out a lot more about their target consumer and they are more prepared for research to come up with findings which at times might be uncomfortable! A focus group can be an excellent format to allow for digging deep, so long as we move away from the more traditional way of getting the answers. By using different approaches, by mixing up the elements, using more projective techniques and asking indirect questions, we can start seeing greater insights emerging. We also like to ensure that the participants are involved in some form of ‘homework’ prior to the sessions – to prepare them for the topics of discussion, but also to add richness to the overall learnings. Combining ‘ethnographic’ (contextual) situations with a focus group structure can also add value.

Whatever the specific technique, the intended result is to push them further away from their familiar to a new and different place.....

What we ultimately are after is the journey that the respondent has experienced to reach their conclusions. It is often their personal observations and commentary on this journey, their musings rather than their direct reactions, which are the most insightful. Sometimes we can even add ‘roadblocks’ along that journey and see how they would respond. Whatever the specific technique, the intended result is to push them further away from their familiar to a new and different place: from ‘faster horses’ to ‘rockets to mars’.

Successful qualitative studies involve the respondents as much as the researchers. It is the teamwork that builds the trust between the moderator and participants, allowing them to delve deeper and dig further for those elusive, often sub-conscious, answers. When we actually shadow a respondent’s life we can get the best glimpse into what really triggers their emotions, however this is not always viable or within budget. The next best option is to facilitate the way to extract those insights and observations (cautiously and strategically); prompted and unprompted. Creating an emotional map which subtly nudges respondents into opening up might sound a little too close to psycho-analysis but actually it is all about using a range of methods to engage the respondent to offer valuable insights. It is a journey which can be very dynamic but it does require a good understanding of when to use visualization, when to engage the senses, when to use deprivation, when to stimulate, and when merely to observe.

The days of using a standard approach, a template discussion guide, and even a predictable flow of questions, are gone. The future is more mixed up: structured to be random and disarming, utilizing a host of tools and techniques borrowed from many social science disciplines. We are no longer simply focus group moderators, but more akin to anthropologists, sociologists, psychologist and psychiatrists – yet never forgetting to help our clients build strategic models and actionable segmentations.

Bryan Urbick

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