When I conduct research, I often like to have conversations with participants about hopes and fears. Lately, we’re talking a lot more about fears than hopes.

Risk— and its mitigation— has always been at the heart of marketing. Think about why marketers issue coupons or take temporary price reductions. It’s partly to reduce the perceived risk of trying a product or service. Why do brands put testimonials in their consumer communications? Or work so hard to get good online reviews? Because this information reduces perceived risk. The list goes on and on. Nearly every marketing tactic is aimed, at least in part, at risk. Think about, on the most fundamental level, what a brand actually is. I’ve always subscribed to the philosophy that a brand is a promise—a reason to believe that the user or consumer experience will be a positive one. So, the very process of establishing and maintaining a brand is a perceived risk reduction strategy.

And that’s why risk has always been one of the fundamental things we study in market research. So much of the research I’ve done over the course of my career has been about either understanding risk, or about evaluating the effectiveness of marketing strategies and tactics at addressing specific risks.

This is a particularly important issue now; we’re all living in a world fraught with risk. I have friends and colleagues who have felt unable to leave their homes since March because they see the dangers as being too great. As a researcher, I’ve interviewed a lot people who suffer from chronic diseases over the past few months. The Pandemic-That-Shall-Not-Be-Named has dramatically altered their relationship to their health conditions. Because they see their condition as being a risk factor if they become infected with you-know-what, they report having become more compliant with respect to taking medications, and state that they are being more diligent at adopting a healthier lifestyle.

When it comes to the actual practice of research, risk has become a particularly resonant issue. Like my colleagues and clients, I’m eager to get back to conducting in-person qualitative. But it’s hard to know when the benefits of doing so will outweigh the dangers. And, regardless of how my clients and I feel, will research respondents be willing to participate face to face?

Because we are more conscious of risk in our personal and professional lives, it’s valuable to be able to think and talk about risk in a clear, organized and detailed manner. Which means that it’s helpful to have some frameworks to think about risk. One of the most useful tools I employ when trying to understand risk is my Perceived Risk Model, which I developed several years ago. It’s a good way to understand specifically how individuals see the risks they face. The model breaks perceived risk down into six specific types: physical, resource/asset, functional, psychological/self-image, emotional and social.

I’ve found that these perceived risk types are characterized by questions people ask themselves when evaluating risk. By watching out for questions like these when talking with research participants, we can get a sense as to the specifics of how they perceive risk.

Physical — “Could this be harmful? Could it injure me or make me ill? Could it endanger others?”

Resource/Asset — “Do I have time for this? What else could I do with the time or money this will require? Can I afford this? What could be the financial effects of an adverse outcome?”

Functional — “Will this perform as expected and required? Will it do what I need it to do? What are the chances of it failing to function as needed? What are the possible ramifications if it doesn’t perform well?”

Psychological/Self Image —“Am I doing the right thing? What does this say about me as a person? Will this decision affect how I view myself?”

Emotional — “Could this cause sadness or disappointment? Do I have the emotional reserves to handle this if it works out badly?”

Social — “How will this affect how others see me? What will this do to my standing within the groups and organizations with which I am associated?”

Here’s an example of how examining risk can lead to important marketing insights. A few years ago I was conducting research on a dietary supplement for individuals with a rare metabolic condition. Patients had, for years, resisted using the supplement, despite strong evidence that it would noticeably improve their health. The client had long believed that the primary concerns for users were linked to functional risk and resource risk, and so they had built their communications to patients and the registered dietitians who treated them around mitigating these risks. They provided data that the product would positively affect patient health, and was well worth the high cost because it could help patients avoid even more costly problems associated with the condition. However, these tactics were largely ineffective. Conversation with patients and dietitians about perceived risks revealed that the single biggest barrier to usage was actually social risk. It turned out that diet supplementation was perceived by influencers within the condition community as being either ‘unnatural’ or a sign of weakness. Once the client started orienting brand communication around this perceived risk, the business began trending upward.

So, once it becomes clear that risk is playing an important role in consumer decision making or behavior, use this Perceived Risk Model to understand that risk on a more granular level. This is just one analytical tool for understanding risk. I have quite a few more risk tools in my toolbag, and I’ll be devoting a number of future newsletters to them, so stay tuned.

I’ve had some discussions recently with clients and researchers about in-person qualitative research versus qualitative conducted via webcams. One point I hear made is that online conversations don’t yield the same level of engagement, intimacy and spontaneity as face-to-face ones. While this is a fair point, it’s often overstated—the difference isn’t as great as some might think. And one factor that gets overlooked is that webcam research allows you to do things that are difficult or impossible to do in person. There’s a pretty long list of tasks that work well online, and no reason to list them all here. But here are three of my favorite things that are particularly easy with webcams.

Geography

Sometimes, when designing in-person qualitative, I’ll try to discourage clients from conducting the research in too many locations. Not only is this time-consuming and expensive, but, if your qualitative will be followed by quantitative, you can get your geographic dispersion easily and cost-effectively in your quant phase. However, sometimes clients truly need a large number of markets represented in the qualitative data—this is particularly common in shopper insights studies. In situations like this, the webcam can really be your friend. You can recruit from a national (or even global) sample, and can include participants from a large number of markets in your study time- and cost-efficiently. And remember—you don’t have to do all your qualitative online. I’ve frequently conducted studies in which we began with one or two in-person markets, and finished the study online with a broader geographic sample.

Aggregated Data

When collecting reactions to stimuli (such as package designs, advertisements or new product concepts), it’s often helpful to be able to create a visual representation of all of the participants’ reactions. Online research platforms make this particularly easy to do, as many contain markup tools that allow participants to record their responses directly on the stimulus, with the back-end software aggregating all responses into a single visual presentation – such as a heat map – in real time. Yes, you can do this sort of thing with in-person research as well, but it’s often a slow, painstaking process.

Hybrid Qual/Quant Research

Most online qualitative platforms have built into them some type of polling question function. This allows you to quickly send a quick, closed ended question to your participants and capture everybody’s quantified response in real time. As with aggregation, while you can do this in person, it’s a lot easier and faster online. And here’s an even more exciting qual/quant wrinkle: there are online tools that will allow you to construct an agile (one- or two-day), fully integrated approach that starts with a large, geographically dispersed quantitative sample and ends with on-the-spot qualitative groups or interviews selected right out of your quant sample. So, at the end of one or two days, you’ll have statistically reliable quantitative data leavened with qualitative insights executed at blinding speed — an integrated study providing higher order insights that can replace time- and money-intensive multiphase research. This approach lends itself to all manner of strategic and tactical tasks: positioning, brand communication, concept development and testing, even segmentation.

These are just some of the unique capabilities webcams provide. I haven’t mentioned a number of others such as bringing a whole new level of feasibility and realism to ethnographic research, rapid textual analysis, or the ability to move participants easily among group discussions, individual interviews and bulletin boards.  But I hope this was enough to pique your curiosity. One final thought: qualitative researchers often can be extroverts – sometimes extreme extroverts – who tend to forget that some research participants can actually be a bit uncomfortable with face-to-face interactions. That little bit of space you allow those people by conducting an interview via webcam can be just enough to make them more relaxed and forthcoming. So, in this time of social distancing, embrace the webcam. It can bring unique qualities to your research.

I’ve had a lot of discussions recently with colleagues about ethics, some specifically regarding market research, some more broadly focused. We’re living in unusual times, and ethics have become a particularly fraught issue. Public health imperatives are going to require aggressive testing and contact tracing protocols among the population for the foreseeable future, and this will inevitably raise privacy concerns, particularly when you consider the technology-based solutions being proposed. We’ve also come face-to-face with such issues as the allocation of resources and the economic value of a human life. Market research is facing ethical challenges as well. Many clients are justifiably interested in understanding how the current public health crisis is influencing consumer attitudes and perceptions, as well as openness to new product and service ideas. However, this can raise difficult questions about how we identify, select, question and compensate the individuals participating in our research.

Most of the research I’ve done in the past three months has been healthcare related, and I’ve encountered situations in which some difficult ethical issues arose. Some of these involved how we recruited research participants, some related to the use of those participants’ personal information, and some were about the interpretation of research findings. In none of these situations was there a single, clear, correct answer. As often happens, we were working in those all-to-common grey areas.

I’m not the only one who’s preoccupied with ethics these days. The European Union and the State of California, to name just a couple, are also interested. Both have passed legislation intended to bring more ethical practices to the treatment of personal information, and more such regulation is sure to come.

As the philosopher Will Durant once pointed out, “we are what we repeatedly do.” His point was that excellence is habitual, but he could have just as easily been talking about ethics—the key to being ethical lies in habits. But what, on a practical level, does that mean? Many years ago, I learned from a very wise man, Rabbi Charles Kroloff, that ethics can be less bedeviling if you get in the routine of asking yourself a series of questions when contemplating a dubious course of action. Here they are.

How does this thing you’re thinking of doing square with accepted codes of conduct?

Is it legal? Is it allowed by your company’s policies?  Is it consistent with your industry’s ethical standards? The market research world has no shortage of codes of conduct, and they’re worth reviewing periodically (I’ve included links to several at the end of this post). Personally, I’m a big fan of the golden rule – “do unto others as you would have them do unto you” —do you risk violating that? You might decide to proceed despite your intended action being against some rule or other, but it’s a good idea to devote a few minutes’ thought to whether this is wise.

How would you feel if your actions became widely known?

Would you be comfortable with that? Would you want your clients, or colleagues, or friends to know? How about your spouse, or kids, or siblings? What if your mother found out? If the idea of people whose opinions you value knowing what you’ve done makes you uneasy, that’s a pretty big red flag—proceed with caution. I’ve never accepted a finder’s fee for referring another supplier to one of my clients, because I wouldn’t be comfortable with my client knowing about it.

What if everybody did this? 

Would the world be a better place, or would it be diminished? Dropping your used gloves on the asphalt isn’t a big deal if you’re the only one who does it, but if everyone coming out of the store follows suit, things will get messy in a hurry. Misleading research participants about the nature of the study in which they’re participating might not do too much damage if you only do it occasionally, but if we all start doing it all the time, the whole research world could blow up. If your contemplated action being emulated by everybody in your industry would cause problems, it’s probably not OK for you to do it either.

What are the potential consequences of my actions? 

This is probably the most important question of all: what could happen if you do this thing? Do you risk prison? A fine? A lawsuit? Losing your job? Being run out of town on a rail? Dirty looks from people you don’t care about? Another great philosopher—Maimonides—once wrote … “a wise man is one who knows the consequences of his actions.” I think we often find ourselves in sticky situations because we didn’t take some time to think carefully about the possible endpoints where our actions might lead. Avoiding the conscious contemplation of outcomes is a very human thing to do—it’s uncomfortable, and often requires you to rethink your plans. That’s why this is a particularly valuable habit to develop. I’ve always suspected that the Enron disaster might have been averted if somebody had just said, ‘hey everybody, there’s no way this ends well.’

So, there you have it: four simple questions for worrisome situations.  If you make them a habit, you’ll make ethical behavior habitual as well.

Links to various research industry codes of conduct:

https://www.qrca.org/page/ethics_practices

https://www.esomar.org/what-we-do/code-guidelines

https://www.insightsassociation.org/issues-policies/insights-association-code-standards-and-ethics-market-research-and-data-analytics-0

https://www.intellus.org/Standards-Guidelines/Code-of-Conduct

https://www.ama.org/codes-of-conduct/

One of the 20^th century’s great philosophers, Mike Tyson, said that. And while I definitely wouldn’t argue with Mike, I’m a big advocate of planning data analysis. If you know me, you’ve probably figured out that I don’t think analysis gets enough attention when it comes to qualitative research. We spend a lot of time planning how we will recruit and conduct research, but then take a seat-of-the-pants attitude towards analyzing our data. And this is a problem, because not planning your analysis can profoundly compromise the value of your research.

Qualitative analysis can be divided into five stages:

• Planning

• Debriefing

• Consolidation

• Unstructured musing

• Structured analysis

I’ll provide my thinking on some of these analysis stages in future newsletters. I’ve already written a piece on consolidation but in this one I’m going to drill down on Planning.

An analysis plan should be a part of any comprehensive research design, qualitative or quantitative. In fact, the more effort you put into planning your analysis while you’re designing your research, the better your analysis will be. Planning has become even more important in recent years, as timelines get shorter, and as researchers are increasingly expected to analyze data from a variety of sources. With all that in mind, here are eight key best practices to follow when planning your analysis:

Consider research objectives and resultant decisions

Every study is (or, at least, should be) driven by business issues. Typically, clients have one or more decisions they will make on the basis of the research findings. Your design and analysis plan should directly address each of these questions and decisions. If it doesn’t show clearly how the data you gather will answer those questions and guide those decisions, something’s missing.

Set action standards

Action standards tell you what you need to see in your data in order to trigger a specific decision. They often take the form of thresholds for metrics like brand awareness, purchase intent, preference, and so forth. It’s crucial that action standards be established BEFORE the research—it’s not OK to eyeball the data after the fact and settle upon action standards then.

Provide structure to your data

Qualitative research is different from quantitative in that the data is, by its nature, less structured. Nevertheless, there are ways to provide some structure, and the more organization you can give to your data, the easier your analysis is going to be. Some ways to provide structure for in-person and webcam research include:

• Written reaction exercises

• Respondent worksheets and polling questions to capture reactions to stimuli

• Respondent markups of research stimuli

• Waiting room questionnaires

• Note-taking worksheets or easel pads for observers and moderators

For online bulletin boards, structure is even more important, as they yield so much data (I conducted a board late last year that generated a 1,200 page transcript and nearly 700 images and videos). Some ways to organize that data include:

• Tagging participants prior to the research on the basis of demographics, attitudes and behaviors (such as ‘three or more kids in home,’ ‘concerned with environmental sustainability,’ or ‘online category shopper.’)

• Tagging responses as they come in, such as ‘concept positive,’ ‘brand negative,’ ‘concerned about cost,’ etc.

• A.I. enabled textual analytics can be invaluable for surfacing trends from the data that you otherwise might never pick up.

Furthermore, how you divide up the sample for your research isn’t just important for group dynamics. Splitting up your groups or boards by demographics or behaviors can make your data better organized, as you’ll have more coherent and focused conversations.

Identify possible tools

It’s important to apply analytical models and frameworks to your data. Thinking in advance about what tools might be relevant could influence how you design and conduct your research. Exactly what tools you’ll end up using might change once you’ve gathered your data, but considering tools up front will give you the opportunity to plan conversations and exercises that will lead to fruitful analysis.

Focus your stimuli

The mark of a good research stimulus, be it a product concept, an advertising storyboard, a packaging prototype, whatever, is that it will generate readable responses. This means focus. Concepts should focus on a single benefit, story boards should focus on one clear selling proposition, and so forth.  Focused stimuli will yield focused, easily analyzable responses. 

Create a deliverable outline

I’m a big believer in drafting a final report outline while designing the study. This is a good way to set expectations as to what the deliverable will cover, and also provides a roadmap for your analysis plan. This outline represents the blanks you’re going to have to fill in, and knowing that in advance is a good way to make sure your research is focused on actionable findings, insights and recommendations.

Think in advance about the role of multiple data sources

The research studies I’m involved with increasingly generate data from a variety of disparate sources.  These can include:

• Conversation

• Creative and projective techniques

• Narratology

• Textual analysis

• Biometrics

• Quantitative survey data

• Syndicated data

• Big data analytics

If you’re going to successfully weave a story together from these sources you must plan for that. This means you’ll need to think about all of the research objectives and resultant decisions, and plan out which of them will be addressed by which data source.

Prepare to be flexible

Dwight Eisenhower once wrote, “I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.” Ike’s point was that, while plans nearly always change in the face of new information, the thinking that went into them is still useful. All that creation of structure and identification of tools, etc. still counts, even if things don’t pan out exactly as expected.

As they say in the military, if you fail to plan, you plan to fail. Carefully planning your analysis before you conduct your research will increase the chances of uncovering that brand-redefining insight, and reduce the possibility of a failed study.

For the last several weeks, nearly everybody I know has been spending an awful lot of time video conferencing.  And, in other news, all of a sudden, most of the qualitative research I’m doing these days is taking the form of webcam interviews or focus groups.  This isn’t a big deal for me—I’ve been conducting webcam research for many years now.  The webcam is a great tool, one that solves a lot of logistical problems, and that can provide highly insightful findings.  But I’d like to take this opportunity to remind you of the existence of one of the oldest of the old-school qualitative research tools: the telephone interview.  There are a lot of things about phone interviews that make me love them.

They’re expedient!

Logistically, phone interviews are simpler to schedule than any other approach—nearly everybody has access to a phone pretty much anytime, and just about everybody knows how to use their phone – even my mother.  What’s more, lots of people have access to multiple phones, decreasing the possibility of scheduling and technical problems.

They’re agile!

If you’re looking to conduct research quickly and flexibly, look no further than the telephone interview.   Phone interviews can often be scheduled on the spot.  I recently did a study among medical practitioners. Nearly half of them, upon completing screening, said that they were available right away.  We were able to pair just about all of them with an interviewer immediately, increasing our recruiting yield and shortening our project timing.  So, if ‘agile’ research is something you seek, the phone interview can be a great way to achieve that.

They’re foolproof!

Compared with most online platforms, a low-tech phone call offers far fewer things that can go wrong.  Aside from a battery going dead or somebody losing their signal, there aren’t too many bad things that can happen.  And, as I mention above, respondents frequently have access to another phone—that’s a nice insurance policy.

They’re cheap!

Platform costs can range from free to $1.00/minute at the most.  Compared to many online market research platforms, this is a bargain.  And recording is a snap.  Many conference calling platforms offer free, high quality archived recording.

They’re profound!

The phone interview’s most important virtue may be depth of insight. Think about your own experiences. Have you ever had a long, deep, intimate phone conversation with a friend? Of course you have! In fact, you’ve probably had lots of those. That’s because a phone call strips away distractions and anxieties. There’s just the sound of two people’s voices. Nobody has to worry about all the aspects of how they look (and let’s face it – everybody’s hair looks terrible these days), and nobody gets distracted by the appearance of the other person or any other visual elements.

Conducting research on the phone lowers the stakes, reduces the sense of expectation, and makes people feel less inhibited. In addition, there’s no anxiety due to unfamiliar technology.  This can make telephone interviews the best option for emotionally-loaded topics: sensitive healthcare issues, politics and personal finance to name just a few. It’s also good to bear in mind that phone interviews are perfect for studies that don’t require you to expose complex stimuli.  In other words, if what you primarily need to do is engage in deep conversation with your research subjects, a voice-only platform might meet your needs better than any other approach, including face-to-face interviewing.

So, this time of social distancing might offer a valuable opportunity to reacquaint yourself (or get acquainted in the first place) with this venerable research technique. Consider phone interviews for studies in which:

You need to compress timing

Money is tight

You don’t need to present complex stimuli

You’re faced with a low incidence recruit

You’re researching sensitive, emotionally loaded issues

With all that in mind, here are a few tips and best practices for getting the most out of telephone interviews:

Who calls whom? Participants don’t always want researchers to have their phone numbers (and vice versa). In addition, this might constitute personal information, which can place researchers and clients at risk. So, I typically have everybody dial into a conference calling service.  While most respondents can dial-in at no additional cost to themselves, it’s important to be sensitive to this issue. So, I always make sure there is a toll-free dial-in option available to the participant. And, for studies involving lower-income participants, I’ll just make toll-free the default option.

Anybody listening in? Do your clients want to monitor some or all of your interviews? If so, you’ll need to inform your participant that this is going on. In addition, having a way for your clients to communicate with you during the call might be a good idea.  If you’re using a conference calling platform— such as freeconferencecall.com or Zoom (with the webcams turned off)—this capability may be built in. If not, text messaging might work well.

Any distractions present? Remind your participants at the beginning of the call to take a minute to eliminate any possible distractions from their environment. This could mean closing the door to the room they’re in, and closing any distracting browser tabs and applications. In addition, it’s important that recruiters confirm when scheduling calls that the participant will be able to conduct the interview undisturbed.

How reliable is your phone? Whenever possible, I conduct phone interviews from a landline. I know this isn’t as cool as my smartphone, but the sound quality is much better, and the possibility of the call being dropped on my end is pretty much nil. I also encourage the respondent to do the same. If using my smartphone, I’ll make sure it’s fully charged, that all sounds and alerts are muted, and that the internet connection is disabled to the greatest extent possible.

Do you need to show stimuli? As mentioned above, if you need to share complex stimuli, phone interviews are probably not your best research tool. But it’s easy to show simple stim, such as written concepts, print ads and 2D packaging renderings. The cleanest solution is emailing them to the participant, if that’s feasible. If not, it’s not difficult to set up a secure file sharing link through the cloud services offered by Google, Microsoft, Dropbox and others. Teleconferencing services might also present a workaround for this problem.

Nobody can see you. So, remember that no meaning or context will be conveyed by either you or the participant through facial expressions, body language or hand gestures. As a result, such subtleties as humor, irony, sarcasm and sadness might not come across. This can create some risk of misunderstandings, so it’s important to regularly repeat back to your respondents your understanding of what they have said for verification.

So, don’t forget.  The telephone interview is your friend. Used wisely, it can enable research that is agile, cost-effective and – most importantly – insightful.  It’s easy to forget about the phone, now that we have so many powerful, high tech, feature-rich solutions available to us.  But, sometimes, it’s still the best tool for the job.