Qualitative marketing research: understanding consumer behavior

247 Pages·2019·3.971 MB·English

by  Maison, Dominika

Qualitative Marketing Research
This is a perfect guide to understanding the core principles of qualitative marketing research. It
presents qualitative marketing research in the broader context of marketing and managerial deci-
sions, consumer psychology, and contemporary knowledge about unconscious and automatic
processes. Different types of qualitative marketing research methods are examined, from the
classic focus group interview (FGI) and individual in-depth interview (IDI), to more cutting-edge
methods such as ethnography or bulletin boards, which enable marketing researchers to discover
and understand real consumer motivations, needs, values, and attitudes. The qualitative market-
ing research process is considered in step-by-step detail:
• from converting the marketing problem into research questions;
• choosing the right qualitative method;
• building research schemata;
• conducting the interview;
• to analysing data and preparing the report.
With numerous international case studies, including PepsiCo, Procter & Gamble, Danone, Nes-
tle, Aviva, Heineken Group, and Citibank, the book is uniquely practical in its approach. It is
vital reading for advanced undergraduate and postgraduate students of marketing research,
consumer behaviour, and consumer psychology, as well as for practitioners.
Dominika Maison, PhD – Professor at the University of Warsaw, Dean of the Faculty of Psy-
chology, and marketing research practitioner. All her professional life she has been trying to
connect science with practice in the field of consumer research, social marketing, and financial
behaviour. In her scientific work, she studies unconscious and automatic consumer processes,
implicit attitudes towards brands and product categories (e.g., using the Implicit Association
Test – IAT, a method based on reaction time), consumer motivation, consumer ethnocentrism,
materialism, and financial behaviour.
In addition to her academic work at the University of Warsaw Faculty of Psychology, she has
been actively engaged in marketing research practice since the early 1990s, having conducted hun-
dreds of focus groups, in-depth interviews, and ethnographic research to date and provided many
academic courses and courses for practitioners on marketing research, including qualitative market-
ing research, as well as bespoke courses for moderators. In 2005, she founded Maison&Partners – a
market research company specialising in strategic marketing research. She has worked with some
of the largest international clients like Procter & Gamble, Masterfoods, Danone, PepsiCo, Nestle,
ING, Aviva, Citibank, Mastercard, and many others. Author of numerous highly cited scientific
articles and books, including: Badania marketingowe. Od teorii do praktyki (Marketing Research:
From Theory to Practice), Propaganda dobrych serc czyli rzecz o reklamie społecznej (Propaganda
of Good Hearts: On the Issue of Social Advertising), Polak w świecie finansów (A Pole in the World
of Finance), and Psychologia konsumenta (Consumer Psychology).
In 2003–2008, she was the President of the Polish Society of Market and Opinion Researchers
(PTBRiO), and between 2012 and 2016, the representative for Poland of ESOMAR, the
European Society for Opinion and Marketing Research – the largest international organisation
dealing with opinion and marketing research.

Qualitative Marketing Research
Understanding Consumer Behaviour
Dominika Maison
First published 2019
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
 2019 Dominika Maison
The right of Dominika Maison to be identified as author of this work
has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in
any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing
from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation
without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record for this book has been requested
ISBN: 978-1-138-60774-3 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-138-60776-7 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-0-429-46702-8 (ebk)
Typeset in Sabon
by Swales & Willis Ltd, Exeter, Devon, UK
Contents
Introduction 1
1 Why we need qualitative research methods: the role of
research in marketing 4
Data-based marketing decisions 4
Qualitative vs. quantitative: choosing the right methodology 6
How qualitative research can help to answer
marketing questions 11
2 From consciousness to unconsciousness: evolution in
understanding consumers and its consequences for
qualitative marketing research practice 23
Traditional way of understanding the consumer: a rational
being aware of own attitudes and needs 23
New approach to the consumer: an emotional being not
fully aware of own attitudes, needs, and motives 26
Discovering the unconscious mind and its implications for
qualitative marketing research 27
Marketing evidence for the existence of unconscious and
automatic processes 34
Evolution of qualitative research: from collecting
information to the search for understanding 36
3 Qualitative methods: the different tools in the hands of
a marketing researcher 48
Classic qualitative marketing research methods: focus group
interviews and individual in-depth interviews 48
Shorter, longer, differently: variations around focus groups 52
Interactive methods: confrontational and creativity groups 57
Closer to the real experience: ethnographic research and
observation in the marketing research context 60
Exploring new technologies: qualitative online research 65
vi Contents
4 Projective and enabling techniques: a way to go beyond declarations 72
What are projective techniques? 72
When projective and enabling techniques can and should
be used in marketing research 74
Types of projective techniques: individual vs. group,
verbal vs. non-verbal, relational vs. non-relational, etc. 77
Key success factor: appropriate selection of interview stimuli 81
Projective and enabling techniques most commonly used
in marketing research 83
Examples of enabling techniques 94
Analysis and interpretation of projective and enabling
techniques 97
5 Step 1: defining the research questions and research schemata 104
Beyond moderation: different stages of qualitative research 104
Defining the research area: from marketing questions to
research questions 104
Designing research schemata: quantitative thinking in
qualitative research 110
Additional rules for selecting respondents 121
Number and type of interviews: final design of
research schemata 126
Most common mistakes in planning research schemata 130
6 Step 2: discussion guide – the art of asking the right questions 136
Elementary rules for a good discussion guide 136
Question type rules 145
Question and topic sequence rules 148
Pilot interview: the last check of the discussion guide 153
7 Step 3: conducting an interview – the difference between
good and bad moderators 157
Good moderation: a skill or a gift? 157
Choosing a moderator for a particular research project 160
Characteristics of a good moderator 162
Types of skills advisable for group discussion 168
Types of skills advisable for ethnographic research 174
Additional skills essential in qualitative research 175
Six major mistakes in moderation 179
8 Step 4: analysing and interpreting qualitative data 185
Why qualitative data analysis is difficult 185
Qualitative data analysis framework 187
Contents vii
Types of qualitative marketing research results presentation 193
Principles of qualitative data analysis 197
The final report 200
9 Concluding chapter: future developments in qualitative
marketing research 209
Why will qualitative research in marketing not disappear? 209
Qualitative research of the future 214
Appendix 1: Example of qualitative research guide prepared
for research on seniors 60+ 218
Appendix 2 229
Index 234

Introduction
The aim of this book is to present various qualitative methods from several perspec-
tives. First, from the perspective of the people involved in conducting research: on the
one hand, marketers – those for whom such research is carried out and who pay for
them, and on the other hand, researchers who conduct the study. Second, from the
perspective of the knowledge underpinning qualitative marketing research, bringing
together many different fields of study. It entails general knowledge from the social
sciences (sociology and psychology) on society, culture, and individuals, as well as
the mechanisms underlying their choices and driving their behaviours. It also com-
prises specialist knowledge on marketing, consumer decisions and behaviours, and
how advertising works. All of this makes qualitative marketing research an interdisci-
plinary area that requires the integration of information derived from many different
fields and sources, and not just practical skills like moderation. In this book, I have
considered several perspectives that stem from my own professional experience as a
psychologist and scientist specialising in consumer psychology and, above all, uncon-
scious and automatic processes, as a long-standing marketing research practitioner
working with the biggest multinationals, and as an academic involved in the teaching
of marketing research to students and practitioners.
At the start, because of the interdisciplinary nature of qualitative marketing
research, two issues must be made clear. First, it is important to grasp the difference
between marketing research and consumer research as a scientific field. Marketing
research consists of studies conducted by practitioners with the goal of identifying
opportunities to increase product sales, building brand images, or changing consumer
behaviour. Based on data collected from consumers (along with additional sources
of information), direct and practical recommendations should be formulated, such
as whether or not to launch a new product, which version of an advertisement to
place in media, and which of several possible brand strategies to adopt. In contrast,
consumer research is an academic field, where scientists, especially psychologists,
conduct relevant studies. The goal here is to establish a general knowledge about the
mechanisms underlying consumer attitudes, decisions, and behaviours. Both market-
ing research and scientific consumer research focus on the consumer (both, without
exception constitute consumer research), but each addresses different questions and
often uses different tools.
The problem with qualitative research is that it is constantly generally undervalued
as a scientific research methodology, which is particularly evident in psychology but
in scientific consumer research too, where experimental methodology is overrated.
This can be seen not only across many psychological research textbooks, for instance,