Garbage in, garbage out!
We're very conscious that we need to fully understand and be able to clearly define: the issues that are to be explored through research; the target audience; the insightful hypothesis to be tested; and, the use to which the research findings will be put. We take a broad-based approach - thinking around culture, motivation and attitude, before addressing specific marketing issues around the category and the brand.
Work with people's prejudices NOT yours...
People start with a point of view. It's foolish to even attempt to focus them on the facts. Instead, start with what people believe and then enhance their worldview.
...and don't try to shift attitudes
The problem with many brand research projects is that brand teams and their appointed researchers set off believing that, in the end at least, they must change people's minds. Trying to persuade people to change their worldview is much the same as telling them they are wrong. And people hate to admit that they're wrong. Good brand research is as much about understanding why and the extent to which, people believe and behave as they do. Through this understanding, great creative ideas can be unearthed and developed to enhance their worldview.
Don't lead the witness...
The reason that we create discussion guides is to ensure consistency, so that it's possible to compare and contrast the similarities and differences between groups of respondents. A common problem with ‘set-piece' discussion guides, designed for ‘set-piece' focus groups, is that they can, all too easily, rely on respondents giving particular answers, under intense questioning, resulting in the research results becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy.
...but do plenty of ‘poking around'
Research has to start with a broad context. Quite often, very often in certain categories or amongst certain segment of consumers, the very notion of sitting down to ‘rationally' discuss something is clearly dumb. So even the ‘where?' and ‘how?' of qualitative research has to be questioned.
Designing research based on a good understanding of why and how people purchase, consume and make decisions is so important. What makes them tick and why? We know that very few decisions or behaviours are rational, based entirely on product performance or truth, so why design research based on the assumption that it is? We have to think about methodologies that help us interpret why people do what they do and what they might do next, because it's highly likely that the people can't explain it themselves. The way people think about things and what motivates them will be driven by certain things outside of the marketing sphere, just as much as inside it, and these can be psychological, cultural or political.
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