Are you interested in gaining a deeper, more intimate perspective on consumers’ evolving feelings, emotions and values that go beyond what the data from all of the many COVID-19 surveys are revealing? 

Here at C+R, we believe that gaining a first-hand, immersive view into consumers' lives right now is the key to forging the empathy necessary for your brands to connect with consumers in ways that will resonate with powerful authenticity.

Someone breaks into a deep cough on a crowded street corner. Another person sneezes on a train. Everyone stares.  We are living in the era of the novel coronavirus, officially known as COVID-19. There are still many unknown factors of this disease, including how contagious it is, and when there might be a solution for global containment.

When market research started back in the 1920s, quantitative research was the name of the game. It seemed to be the only way to gather accurate insights—that is, until qualitative research started to gain popularity in the 1950s and 60s. 

We discovered that in order to harness the emotional insights that you need from consumers during online qualitative you have to first earn the right to get those emotional responses and build that empathy with your customers. In this second blog of the s

"Make sure that we get a good regional representation." That has often been the charge from the marketing manager to the insights director. There has been a belief that different cuisines, climates, and experiences would have an impact on attitudes and tastes that could affect how consumers react to new products. So, we would be certain to conduct focus groups in markets in three different regions or that quotas were set to assure the sample represented the East, South, Midwest, and West equally. This was simply good research practice.

Some of you may recall my previous posts: Qwiki for Video Collages and Exploring Popular Memes as New Projective Activities. I recently presented at the QRCA Conference in San Diego to share these ideas as well as a few other favorite apps for research purposes.

There is much debate over the superiority of online versus face-to-face qualitative research. Online qualitative is not just the latest thing. Discussion boards and communities enable the researcher to engage the consumer in so many ways -- pictures, journals, video, collages -- with all this material available to the participants and the research team in one place. And, consumers can be anywhere -- their home, in a store -- doing anything, when they describe their experiences and reactions.

By Bob Relihan, Senior Vice President

The title is meant to be a bit clever. I am not talking about actual focus groups; I am referring to the term. I have always suspected that focus group was used to refer to any casual, open-ended, small sample, non-projectable research method. And, I always thought that those who used the term this way were misinformed. Well, I have to throw in the towel. I have no better authority than the Pew Research Center.