Getting beyond surface rationalisation is partly about styles of interviewing, it is also about using research approaches and techniques to help move beyond the surface. Enabling with words can help move beyond the surface and explore deeper into the minds of the customer.
Karen Stevens 
17 Mar, 2009
Qualitative corner: Enabling with words
Enabling with Words
Karen Stevens continues the series exploring how different qualitative research techniques work and where they fit in. Last month we examined Role Play as a qualitative technique, this month we look at Adjectives and Emotions lists.
The Role of Research Techniques
Qualitative research embraces an enormous variety of different styles and approaches. What unites the ‘qualitative method’ is its flexible, responsive and reactive approach; in qualitative interviewing, lines of questioning and probing are adapted in response to what has gone before. This ‘methodological individualism’ encourages the participants in qualitative research to engage more with the process. This also allows the interviewer to find their way beyond the ‘stock’ answers and post rationalizations that HCPs can so easily provide.
In market research we are often seeking to understand why one drug outperforms
another even though they are functionally similar or why brands elicit different
responses in customers. Uncovering what brands communicate, the attachments
(both rational and emotional) people have formed with brands and how these
attachments arose can be challenging. Simple questioning, albeit useful in
answering such questions tends to provide ‘expected’ responses which add little
insight.
Getting beyond surface rationalisation is partly about styles of interviewing, it is also about using research approaches and techniques to help move beyond the surface. Adjective lists and emotional framing are enabling techniques which can help move beyond the surface and explore deeper into the minds of the customer.
Adjectives and emotions can be defined as follows1:
- Adjective: “a word that expresses an attribute of something”
- Emotion: “a psychological state that arises spontaneously rather than through conscious effort and is sometimes accompanied by psychological changes; a feeling”
Adjective lists and emotion lists (what we call ‘emotional framing’) are designed to uncover the ‘attributes’ and ‘feelings’ that people associate (often subconsciously) with particular brands, companies or communications materials.
These techniques offer very simple yet effective tools in the research setting and are highly adaptable for use in a variety of situations. Essentially, respondents are asked to select a number of words (from a sheet comprising several dozen) that reflect how they feel or what they associate with a particular subject. In itself, this can be very effective in providing a quick and clear understanding of where positive or negative associations lie, though detailed probing typically elicits deeper understanding of the responses given and hence increases the value to the technique. Although these techniques are somewhat ‘leading’ (the words have been provided to the respondent), this can have benefits. Firstly it can trigger real associations or feelings which may not emerge spontaneously and secondly the stimulus provided can be controlled. The words can be developed to fit the specific marketplace, however it is important not to introduce bias here.
Although adjective lists and emotional framing ‘work’ in the same way and to some extent are interchangeable in the research setting, in practice each has a subtly different role to play.
Adjectives lists are particularly appropriate when trying to explore what
values or attributes are associated with a particular brand or company. Equally,
they can be used to understand what values it is believed a piece of advertising
or other communications piece conveys. By contrast, ‘emotional framing’ can
be important in moving beyond the functional brand associations and elicit
deep rooted emotional attachments which often remain hidden. It is through
these emotions that we can often uncover what is truly differentiating about
a brand or marketing campaign. Not only can the emotions list be used to understand
associations or feelings in the here and now, it can also be used to understand
how people would like to feel in the future (and what is needed in order for
them to feel this way).
Through their simplicity, both tools provide the basis for us to clearly see
differences between attributes or emotions linked with a particular subject
matter. We can establish, for example, that Brand X has more positive connotations
than Brand Y and, through explorative questioning, can establish the reasons
behind this. Or perhaps we can see that a particular piece of advertising conveys
negative emotions; again through careful questioning it is possible to understand
what drives this, for example, the tone, the content, the imagery. Through
this technique we can also quickly see any differences in responses from different
respondent types (e.g. GPs vs. specialists or even patients) or different markets.
As an element used as part of a wider brand exploration exercise it can prove
highly insightful.
1 Source: http://www.thefreedictionary.com
Your response:
Login to respond to this article: