Far away but up close and personal

Editor’s note: Caroline Richardson is project account director at Nunwood, a U.K. research firm.

For research projects which span continents and involve many different countries, it can be difficult to encourage this same innovative approach in research techniques and methods of dissemination.

Research projects requiring insight from across the globe are usually highly strategic pieces, with many stakeholders (who are often scattered around the world). Using unproven, innovative approaches for high-value projects of this nature can be seen as risky. After all, you know what you will get out of running a series of focus groups and you need buy-in from all parties involved. There is also the view that budgets can’t withstand giving free rein to creativity when conducting qualitative research internationally.

However, there is a strong case for harnessing and nurturing this creativity and it shouldn’t simply stop at a domestic level. While focus groups and in-depth interviews can work for certain research needs, we could be in danger of not only succumbing to death by PowerPoint but also death by focus group!

We are now seeing a change in clients’ research needs and an interest in taking consumer insight one step further. It’s not simply enough to understand what people say they feel about new products and services. There is now a much greater focus on investigating consumers’ daily lives - their routines, their frustrations, their “inspiration points,” their aspirations - to understand how our clients can develop desirable products and services. This is not something that can be easily done through a series of focus groups or other traditional qualitative research. It needs to go much deeper than that, to the subliminal level.

Many have adapted to these changes and embraced them when conducting domestic research. However the thought of doing so on an international project can strike fear into the heart of any researcher. How can this logistically work on a global level? How can we undertake this without blowing the research budget completely out of the water? And importantly, how can we feed these results back to clients and stakeholders globally?

Too many obstacles? Maybe we’ll just stick to good old focus groups. That way, everyone one will know what they’re doing and everyone will know what they are getting.

A step further

For those prepared to take it a step further, the more innovative alternative that immediately springs to mind is ethnography, a research technique that is frequently bandied about and scrutinized. To many, it is the answer to conducting innovative qualitative research. However you will often find that budgetary and time constraints usually negate the possibility of conducting pure ethnography.

More and more often, we are being asked to conduct research as cost-effectively as possible, in as little time as possible and pure ethnography checks neither of these boxes. Particularly when applied to international research, it often isn’t the answer. If stakeholders in the U.S., Europe, Asia and Africa are relying on the research findings, they will not be prepared to wait for months on end while time is spent with consumers and still more time is spent analyzing their behavior!

However, it is possible to use alternative research techniques and methods of dissemination for global projects. These can be conducted cost-effectively, without the anticipated headaches outlined above. The following case studies illustrate this. These are not off-the-shelf examples, as there is no one solution to any research need and set of objectives. They illustrate the need to push the boundaries when conducting qualitative research internationally.

Alternative ways

Gaining a deep understanding of people’s daily lives requires the commitment of respondents over a length of time. Avoiding pure ethnography, there are alternative ways of getting to know consumers as individuals while making the most of technology and visual stimulus to allow findings to be quickly and easily disseminated around the globe.

A panel approach can be taken to understand the daily lives of consumers and understand the journey they undertake when considering and using new products and services. It allows researchers and clients to follow people’s lives, tag along on the customer experience journey, understand what they are going through, measure satisfaction and determine the points at which they may be likely to switch and other potential areas to capitalize on.

Running a qualitative panel on an international level doesn’t simply have to incorporate the usual qualitative techniques of depth interviews, etc. Respondents should be given a vehicle to record their activities, thoughts, emotions, hopes and aspirations without having to repeat them to a researcher in person. This can be done through the use of Web and mobile technology. By setting up a dedicated Web site, designed for the specific project and panel, respondents can log (in a journal-type approach) anything and everything of relevance, having been briefed at the start of the project. Respondents can record these thoughts on an ongoing basis in their own personal area. They can also be prompted with questions by the researcher according to their responses and even blog in forums with other panelists. It can even be taken one step further, encouraging the use of Web cams and podcasts for visual impact.

Allowing for the fact that consumers experience many things away from their desk and their Web browser, they can be given other means of constantly logging this information, almost in a journalistic approach, using PDAs, SMS messages, MMS or even a phone number they can call to leave a voice message.

All these options let respondents record their experiences in real time and give researchers insight into their experiences, almost as if they were accompanying them on the journey in person (without the expense of being there every step of the way!). If this is occasionally supplemented with the more traditional qualitative techniques of depth interviews to prompt, encourage and develop understanding, then the result is a full, all-encompassing understanding of the consumer and their personal journey, something which cannot be derived from the sterile environment of a focus group.

“Panels are lengthy,” I hear you cry! “How can we get results quickly and how does this lend itself to an international approach?” Not only can the researcher have access to the customer experience and journey, but through the use of a Web site, clients across the globe can log on and view the responses at each stage of the journey. They can even interact with the respondents themselves, by responding to their blogs - a true form of customer closeness. This constant feed of findings allows dissemination to take place on an ongoing basis, letting clients feel close to the research and meaning that the presentation of findings at the end of the panel or at mid-points simply serves to clarify and summarize.

In terms of logistics, the respondent Web site can be set up and managed by the central coordinating agency, allowing cost savings. Translation software can be used and both the local and global researchers take responsibility for absorbing the customer’s journey, with the local researcher prompting, providing the local market knowledge and completing any of the in-person touchpoints.

Bring to life

In another example, this time focusing on effective global dissemination in particular, our firm was tasked to bring to life a segmentation study for stakeholders across the globe - insight specialists, marketers, product developers and external stakeholders. Having already completed extensive qualitative and quantitative research to identify the segments, there was a need to represent these and to take it a step further beyond the usual PowerPoint case study profiles.

Again, an ethnographic approach was used to spend time with respondents in their daily lives, through various touchpoints - briefing meetings, journals, depth interviews, observation. However, importantly, all of these interactions with the respondents were videotaped. This enabled us to build a series of visual records of each of the individual segments. The films were completed by segment (showing each segment across all countries) and by country (showing all the segments in each country). Stakeholders across the globe were then able to download these films from their desks to truly understand the segments. The films have visual impact and staying power, giving product developers and marketers an understanding of exactly the type of people they are targeting.

Making the most of the visual element allowed minimum time to be spent with the respondents, with maximum impact for the clients. The filming and production was managed centrally, with local researchers used for the respondent touchpoints.

Think more innovatively

These examples point to the fact that, when, designing or commissioning global research programs, clients and researchers should not be afraid to think more innovatively and creatively. Technology can allow us into the lives of consumers over a period of time, rather than simply a snapshot view of their lives. Make the most of it.