Exploratory Research : Qualitative

Focus Group
Depth Interview
Projective Technique
 Focus group
 An interview conducted by a trained moderator
among a small group of respondents in an
unstructured and natural manner.
 The main purpose of focus groups is to gain

insights by listening to a group of people from

the appropriate target market talk about issues
of interest to the researcher.
 The value of the technique lies in the

unexpected findings often obtained from a free-

flowing group discussion.
 Characteristics of Focus Groups
 Group size: 8 to 12
 Group composition: Homogeneous; respondents

prescreened
 Physical setting: Relaxed, informal
atmosphere
 Time duration: 1 to 3 hours
 Recording: Use of audiocassettes and
videotapes
 Moderator: Observational, interpersonal,
and communication skills of
the moderator
 Advantages of Focus Groups
1. Synergism: Putting a group of people together will produce a
wider range of information, insight, and ideas than will individual
responses secured privately.
2. Snowballing: A bandwagon effect often operates in a group
interview, in that one person’s comment triggers a chain reaction
from the other participants.
3. Stimulation: Usually after a brief introductory period, the
respondents want to express their ideas and expose their
feelings as the general level of excitement over the topic
increases in the group.
4. Security: Because the participants’ feelings are similar to those
of other group members, they feel comfortable and are therefore
willing to express their ideas and feelings.
5. Spontaneity: Since participants are not required to answer
specific questions, their responses can be spontaneous and
unconventional and should therefore provide an accurate idea of
their views.
 Advantages of Focus Groups
6. Serendipity: Ideas are more likely to arise out of the
blue in a group than in an individual interview.
7. Specialization: Because a number of participants are
involved simultaneously, use of a highly trained, but
expensive, interviewer is justified.
8. Scientific scrutiny: The group interview allows close
scrutiny of the data-collection process, in that observers
can witness the session and it can be recorded for later
analysis.
9. Structure: The group interview allows for flexibility in
the topics covered and the depth with which they are
treated.
10. Speed: Since a number of individuals are being
interviewed at the same time, data collection and analysis
proceed relatively quickly.
 Advantages of Focus Groups
1. Misuse: Focus groups can be misused and abused by
considering the results as conclusive rather than exploratory.
2. Misjudge: Focus group results can be more easily misjudged
than the results of other data-collection techniques. Focus
groups are particularly susceptible to client and researcher
biases.
3. Moderation: Focus groups are difficult to moderate.
Moderators with all the desirable skills are rare. The quality of the
results depends heavily on the skills of the moderator.
4. Messy: The unstructured nature of the responses makes
coding, analysis, and interpretation difficult. Focus group data
tend to be messy.
5. Misrepresentation: Focus group results are not representative
of the general population and are not projectable. Consequently,
focus group results should not be the sole basis for
decision making.
 Application of Focus Group Study
1.Understanding consumers’ perceptions,
preferences, and behavior concerning a product
category
2. Obtaining impressions of new product concepts
3. Generating new ideas about older products
4. Developing creative concepts and copy material
for advertisements
5. Securing price impressions
6. Obtaining preliminary consumer reaction to
specific marketing programs
 Methodological Application
1. Defining a problem more precisely
2. Generating alternative courses of action
3. Developing an approach to a problem
4. Obtaining information helpful in structuring
consumer questionnaires
5. Generating hypotheses that can be tested
quantitatively
6. Interpreting previously obtained quantitative
results
 Depth Interview
 An unstructured, direct, personal interview in
which a single respondent is probed by a highly
skilled interviewer to uncover underlying
motivations, beliefs, attitudes, and feelings on a
topic.
 depth interviews are an unstructured and direct

way of obtaining information

 A depth interview may take from 30 minutes to

more than one hour.

 Depth Interview Technique
 Laddering
 A technique for conducting depth interviews in

which a line of questioning proceeds from product

characteristics to user characteristics.
 QUESTION: Why do you buy Maybelline cosmetics?
 ANSWER: “I buy Maybelline cosmetics because it is

a good brand name at a reasonable price.”

 QUESTION: Why are reasonably priced cosmetics so

important to you?
 ANSWER: “Well, buying a quality product that isn’t

high priced makes me feel good about myself

because I am spending my money wisely.”
 Depth Interview Technique
 Hidden issue questioning
 A type of depth interview that attempts to locate

personal sore spots related to deeply felt personal

concerns.
 Respondents were questioned about fantasies,

work lives, and social lives to identify hidden life

issues. The answers indicated that glamorous,
historic, elite
 Depth Interview Technique
 Symbolic analysis
 A technique for conducting depth interviews in which
the symbolic meaning of objects is analyzed by
comparing them with their opposites.
 “What would it be like if you could no longer use
airplanes?”
 Responses like, “Without planes, I would have to rely
on e-mail, letters, and telephone calls” were received.
 This suggests that what airlines sell to the managers
is face-to-face communication.
 Thus, an effective ad might be one that guarantees
that the airline will do the same thing for a manager
that Federal Express does for a package.
Advantages of Depth Interview
 Depth interviews can uncover greater depth of
insights than focus groups.
 Its attribute the responses directly to the

respondent, unlike focus groups, where it is often

difficult to determine which respondent made a
particular response.
 Its result in free exchange of information that may

not be possible in focus groups because there is

no social pressure to conform to group response.
 Disadvantages of Depth Interview
 Skilled interviewers capable of conducting depth interviews are
expensive and difficult to find.
 The lack of structure makes the results susceptible to the

interviewer’s influence, and the quality and completeness of the

results depend heavily on the interviewer’s skills.
 The data obtained are difficult to analyze and interpret, and the

services of skilled psychologists are typically required for this

purpose.
 The length of the interview combined with high costs means that the

number of depth interviews in a project will be small.

 Application of Depth Interview
The primary use of depth interviews is for exploratory research to gain
insights and understanding. Depth interviews can be effectively employed in
special problem situations, such as those requiring:
1. Detailed probing of the respondent
2. Discussion of confidential, sensitive, or embarrassing topics
3. Situations where strong social norms exist and the respondent may be
easily swayed by group response (attitude of college students toward sports)
4.Detailed understanding of complicated behavior
5. Interviews with professional people (industrial marketing research)
6. Interviews with competitors, who are unlikely to reveal the information in a
group setting (travel agents’ perceptions of airline package travel programs)
7. Situations where the product consumption experience is sensory in nature,
affecting mood states and emotions (perfumes, bath soap)
 Projective technique
 An unstructured and indirect form of questioning that encourages
the respondents to project their underlying motivations, beliefs,
attitudes, or feelings regarding the issues of concern.
 In projective techniques, respondents are asked to interpret the

behavior of others rather than describe their own behavior.

 In interpreting the behavior of others, respondents indirectly

project their own motivations, beliefs, attitudes, or feelings into

the situation.
 Thus, respondents’ attitudes are uncovered by analyzing their

responses to scenarios that are deliberately unstructured, vague,

and ambiguous.
 The more ambiguous the situation, the more respondents project

their emotions, needs, motives, attitudes, and values.

 Association techniques
 An individual is presented with a stimulus and asked to respond
with the first thing that comes to mind.
 Word association is the best known of these techniques. In word

association, respondents are presented with a list of words, one at

a time, and asked to respond to each with the first word that comes
to mind.
 The words of interest, called test words, are interspersed

throughout the list, which also contains some neutral, or filler, words
to disguise the purpose of the study.
 For example, in the department store study, some of the test words

might be: “location,” “parking,” “shopping,” “quality,” and “price.”

 Completion Techniques
 In completion techniques, the respondent is asked to complete an
incomplete stimulus situation.
 Common completion techniques in marketing research are

sentence completion and story completion.

 Sentence completion is similar to word association. Respondents

are given incomplete sentences and asked to complete them.

 Generally, they are asked to use the first word or phrase that

comes to mind, as illustrated in the department store patronage

project.
 Ex: Aarong is most liked by_______________
 STORY COMPLETION
 Instory completion, respondents are given part of a story
—enough to direct attention to a particular topic but not to
hint at the ending. They are required to give the
conclusion in their own words. The respondents’
completion of this story will reveal their underlying
feelings and emotions
 Construction technique
 A projective technique in which the respondent is
required to construct a response in the form of a
story, dialogue, or description.
 Picture response technique
 A projective technique in which the respondent is
shown a picture and asked to tell a story describing it.
 Cartoon tests
 Cartoon characters are shown in a specific situation
related to the problem. The respondents are asked
to indicate the dialogue that one cartoon character
might make in response to the comments of another
character.
 Expressive Techniques
 Respondents are presented with a verbal or visual situation and
asked to relate the feelings and attitudes of other people to the
situation. The respondents express not their own feelings or
attitudes, but those of others. The two main expressive
techniques are role playing and third-person technique.
 In role playing, respondents are asked to play the role or

assume the behavior of someone else. The researcher assumes

that the respondents will project their own feelings into the role.
 In third-person technique, the respondent is presented with a

verbal or visual situation and asked to relate the beliefs and

attitudes of a third person rather than directly expressing
personal beliefs and attitudes. This third person may be a friend,
neighbor, colleague, or a “typical” person.
 Advantages of Projective Technique
 They may produce responses that subjects would
be unwilling or unable to give if they knew the
purpose of the study.
 In direct questioning, the respondent may
intentionally or unintentionally misunderstand,
misinterpret, or mislead the researcher.
 Its can increase the validity of responses by

disguising the purpose. This is particularly true

when the issues to be addressed are personal,
sensitive, or subject to strong social norms.
 Its are also helpful when underlying motivations,

beliefs, and attitudes are operating at a

subconscious level.
 Disadvantages of Projective Technique
 These techniques generally require personal interviews with highly
trained interviewers.
 Skilled interpreters are also required to analyze the responses.

Hence, they tend to be expensive.

 Furthermore, there is a serious risk of interpretation bias. With the

exception of word association, all techniques are open ended,

making the analysis and interpretation difficult and subjective.
 Some projective techniques, such as role playing, require

respondents to engage in unusual behavior.

 In such cases, the researcher may assume that respondents who

agree to participate are themselves unusual in some way.

 Therefore, they may not be representative of the population of

interest.
 Application of Projective Technique
 Projective techniques are used less frequently than unstructured
direct methods (focus groups and depth interviews). A possible
exception may be word association, which is used commonly to
test brand names and occasionally to measure attitudes about
particular products, brands, packages, or advertisements.
Projective techniques can be used in a variety of situations.
 1. Projective techniques should be used because the required

information cannot be accurately obtained by direct methods.

 2. Projective techniques should be used for exploratory research to

gain initial insights and understanding.

 3. Given their complexity, projective techniques should not be used

naively.