Thinktank: Slotting online into the qual mix
Social media types love to talk about the Internet being the Holy Grail of marketing research. They rub their hands at the idea of the demise of the ‘outmoded’ focus group. brand-e asked Sabine Stork, founding partner of Thinktank International Research, what she makes of social media methodology… as well as tried-and-trusted qualitative techniques.
Web-based research is on a growth curve right now – how does it fit into the qual mix?
The Internet enriches research and allows us to do things we couldn’t do before – for example we get to listen in to unprompted conversations. It’s very good for helping to create hypotheses which can be explored in depth with ‘conventional’ qual research, or indeed quantified with a representative sample.
Social media provides a great opportunity to get in touch with the experts. So you can, for example, find a sector’s major bloggers and you can engage with them, and talk to them.
And online communities are great for introducing new ideas and exploring them and seeing how they develop within a community. We will see a lot more of this. They have great potential for research.
Will traditional research methods become redundant given that online is now one huge research bank?
Well, it’s not true that the Internet is one big focus group because brands can’t and shouldn’t intervene in every consumer relevant interaction. Social media monitoring is great for looking at unprompted conversations – you get to listen in to talk without a mediator. But you can’t get feedback on ideas those participating haven’t yet heard about yet. Focus groups differ in that they can do just that – they’re flexible and fleet-of-foot.
There’s a danger with just listening in on the Internet that you won’t necessarily get anywhere. If what you have to offer doesn’t have much talkability, as with low-involvement goods, it doesn’t mean it’s not worth exploring consumers’ relationships with them using qualitative and ethnographic methods.
We once did research into sports sponsorship and wanted to know how people related to the sport. We used buzz tools to start understanding the dynamics, but we couldn’t work out how people who were not into the sport related to it. It was in the groups when we got to know how the mainstream related to it. We also found out things people simply didn’t talk about spontaneously in online conversations – online, we weren’t able to determine the importance of the fashion and convivial elements because the people who talked concentrated on sporting achievement.
So, it’s qual as usual for you?
Far from it. Face-to-face interaction isn’t the same as online interaction. It’s true that the focus group has a certain amount of artificiality, but good moderators make allowances for that. And while face-to-face allows you to do things that other methods don’t, online also lets you achieve things you can’t do in other ways. With both, you can understand people, and in a more holistic way. Which is way better than going down the route of either/or.
That sounds like more and more research – would that be a good thing?
No. Clients are drowning in data already – in fact sorting what’s online and helping explain what it means is clearly an area where researchers add real value. It’s also true that some brands do too much research and that begets decision paralysis at worst. They don’t lead from the front. You cannot and should not research every single decision you are making. You need a belief in your brand and you need to be brave. It’s not a question of simply listening and not broadcasting. Consumers want brands which have vision.
Some clients over-rely on what consumers tell them and they don’t have a strong position as a brand. Consumers can be engaged to co-create but they also appreciate new ideas to surprise and delight them. They don’t want brands just to reflect what’s out there – in effect they still want leadership.
