Marketing research and

empirical project
Agenda: Week 3
• Qualitative vs. Quantitative research, primary and secondary data
• Common qualitative methods in marketing research (interviews, focus
groups, perceptual mapping, projective techniques)
Methodology Vs Methods
• Methodology
• A methodology is the rationale for the research approach, and the lens
through which the analysis occurs. In other words, a methodology
describes the “general research strategy that outlines the way in which
research is to be undertaken” 
• Broader Methodology – Quantitative or Qualitative
• A method is simply the tool used to answer your research questions
— how, in short, you will go about collecting your data.
• Surveys, Interviews, ethnography, ………..
Key terminology
• Qualitative vs. Quantitative research
• Qualitative research: Findings are not subject to quantification or quantitative analysis.
Its research conclusions are not based on precisely, measurable statistics but on more
subjective observations and analysis.
• Data collected often through interviews and focus groups
• Quantitative research: Research that uses mathematical analysis. Typically research
analysis is done using measurable and numeric standards.
• Data collected often through surveys
• Primary and secondary data
• Primary data is the data collected by researcher for his/her own research with some
research method (=new data)
• Secondary data is the data that already exists and which as been collected for another
purpose (=existing data)
Nature of secondary data
• Advantages of secondary data:
• Can help to clarify or refine the issue or problem
• Might provide a solution to a research problem
• Might provide primary data research alternatives
• Can alert the researcher to other problems
• Provides background information enhancing research credibility
• Usually less expensive and faster to gather compared to primary data
Nature of secondary data
• Disadvantages of secondary data:
• Lack of availability on your topic
• Lack of relevance specifically on your topic
• Data might be outdated
• Inaccuracy
• Might be biased - intentionally or unintentionally
• Insufficiency of coverage - not enough information exists
Nature of secondary data
• Questions to address the reliability of secondary data:
• Who gathered the data?
• What was the purpose of the study?
• What information was collected?
• When was the information collected?
• How was the information collected?
• Is the information consistent with other information?
• Triangulation: The process of comparing two or more sources of information – is the
information consistent?
Nature of primary data
• Primary data aims to collect the kind of data needed to answer the
research questions which cannot be answered by secondary data
alone
• Uses methods such as interviews, focus groups, observation,
experiments, and surveys
• Advantages of primary data:
• Accuracy, relevance, up-to-date data specifically focused on your topic
• Less biased when data collection is done professionally
• Disadvantages of primary data:
• Costly and time-consuming
Qualitative vs. quantitative research

Source: McDaniel & Gates (2015)

General limitations of qualitative research
• Attitudinal, perceptual, and belief differences revealed during
qualitative research might not be easily measured through qualitative
research.
• Quantitative research will more precisely measure these differences.
• Qualitative research, unlike quantitative, is often not statistically
representative of the general population.
• Although qualitative results might give you a good idea about the population,
they do not allow you to precisely gauge the populations’ responses based on
the limited sample typical of qualitative research.
Common qualitative methods in marketing
research
1. In-depth interviews
• One-on-one interviews that probe and elicit detailed answers to questions, often using
non-directive techniques to uncover hidden motivations
2. Focus group interviews
• A group interview of 8-12 participants who are led by a moderator in an in-depth
discussion on one particular topic or concept
3. Perceptual mapping
• An attempt to visually display the perceptions of customers or potential customers on
competing brands and their attributes
4. Projective techniques
• An unstructured, indirect form of questioning that encourages respondents to project
their underlying motivations, beliefs, attitudes or feelings regarding the issue of concern
1. In-depth interviews
• Method for in-depth probing of customer’s opinions, beliefs, and
values
• Unstructured vs semi-structured
• Unstructured interviews have no fixed set of questions, semi-structured have
a list of certain topics/questions
• Some common interview techniques:
• Probing: interviewer asking follow-up questions designed to obtain more and
deeper information
• Critical incident technique: Technique that aims to make a positive or
negative contribution to an activity or phenomenon by asking customers’
experiences.
1. In-depth interviews
• Example (Probing): Customer who bought a car is being interviewed
• Customer: When I bought my new Mazda, I felt, “What a bargain!”
• Interviewer: I hear you. But what did you feel?
• Customer: Well, I felt that the price was fine.
• Interviewer: And what did you feel?
• Customer: You know, I felt a little cheap.
1. In-depth interviews
• Example (Critical incident technique): Customer is interviewed about his
experiences with British Airlines
• Interviewer: Can you tell me what was the worst thing you have
experienced with British Airlines?
• Customer: Last year I was flying home for Christmas holiday. I had booked
the flight for December 23rd. When I arrived to the airport, I was told that
the flight was overbooked and I was denied access to the flight. As a
result, I missed Christmas celebrations at home.
• Interviewer: How did you feel and how could the service be improved?
• Customer: I was very upset. They should improve their booking systems
and policies.
1. In-depth interviews
• Advantages:
• Respondent feels important and truly wanted
• Encourages the revelation of new information
• Respondents can be questioned at length to reveal feelings and motivations
• Individual interviews allow greater flexibility to the direction of questioning
• The interviewer becomes more sensitive to nonverbal feedback
• A person’s own viewpoint can be obtained without influence from others – no
group pressure
• Interviews can be conducted anywhere
2. Focus group interviews
2. Focus group interviews
• Selecting the participants:
• Potential opinion leaders are best
• Participants must be screened for relevance to the topic
• Selecting the focus group facility:
• A research facility consisting of a conference room or living room setting and a separate
observation room with a one-way mirror or live audiovisual feed.
• Selecting the moderator: A person hired by the client to lead the focus group
• This person should have a background in psychology or sociology or, at least, marketing.
• Create a moderator's guide to include:
• Timetable for each topic, clear goals/questions to be answered
• Strategy for keeping group on task / focused
• Managing the group dynamics is critical
2. Focus group interviews
• Advantages:
• Good for idea generation, brainstorming, and understanding customer
vocabulary
• Can be helpful in gaining insight to customer motives, attitudes, perceptions
• Can reveal needs / likes & dislikes / prejudices driven by emotions
• Group Dynamics: Interactions among respondents can stimulate new ideas
and thoughts
• The moderator must manage this factor actively to achieve the best results
3. Perceptual mapping
• Perceptual mapping enables companies to better understand their
customers: the who, why, where, how and what of their behavior
• Example: Can be used to help keep track of how a new product, such as a recently
introduced smartphone, is being viewed in a specific market
• Perceptual mapping also allows businesses to see what consumers think
of other brands, particularly their competitors.
• Use of diagrams
• Advantages:
• Perceptual mapping can help define market segments
• Can also help identify gaps in a market where a new product or service could be
introduced
3. Perceptual mapping
4. Projective techniques
• Projective techniques are indirect methods used in qualitative research
• The aim of projective techniques is to uncover peoples’ deepest feelings, beliefs,
attitudes and motivations which many people find difficult to articulate
(=subconscious, not conscious behavior)
• Subjects are to “project” their personality, attitudes, opinions and self-concept
• Projective techniques are typically used in depth interviews or traditional focus groups
• Projective techniques can be fundamental to consumer research, particularly when
the goal is to understand deep emotional connections and cognitions toward brands,
products, and services
• The goal is to uncover the answer to “why”?
• Example: Why middle-aged men like expensive sports cars?
• Example: Why you drink Coca Cola and not Pepsi?
Projective
Technique
4. Projective techniques
• Advantages:
• Projective techniques are useful because people tend to have limited
understanding of their own behavior and they often have difficulties in
articulating their motivations and desires. While direct questioning works well
most of the time, sometimes market researchers want to investigate
consumers’ deeper values and beliefs. In such cases, projective techniques
are typically used in conjunction with direct questioning in qualitative
research.
• 5 types of projective techniques: Association, Construction,
Completion, Expressive, and Choice ordering
4. Projective techniques
• Association: Subjects are being presented with a stimulus and responding with a word,
image or thought.
• Example techniques: Word association and brand personification
• Construction: Subjects are asked to write descriptions or a story about a stimulus.
• Example techniques: Picture response - describe what the people in the picture are thinking and
feeling or how the subject perceives an object
• Completion: Subjects are presented with an incomplete sentence, story or conversation
about what a person is thinking, saying and doing
• Example techniques: Sentence/story completion, bubble drawings, third-person technique
• Expressive: Subjects are asked to role-play, act, draw or paint a specific concept or
situation
• Choice ordering: Asking subjects to rank things in order and explain, e.g. “most important
– least important” or categorize certain factors associated with a product, brand or service
Conclusion
• Methodology and methods are interrelated but not the same

• Quantitative methodology is used when you can measure variables accurately or

when the hypotheses is objective based

• Qualitative methodology is when the research design is inductive, and the

variables are subjective in nature

• Primary Vs Secondary

• Methods – Interviews, focus groups

Thank you!