Editor's note: Faith James is vice president, strategic marketing, at Sentient Decision Science Inc., a Portsmouth, N.H., research company. She can be reached at fjames@sentientdecisionscience.com. This article appeared in the July 8, 2013, edition of Quirk's e-newsletter.

If there's one word that's stuck with research throughout the past decade, it's "innovative" - especially in the qualitative space. Everyone's talking about new ways to gather insights beyond what can be gleaned from a straightforward focus group discussion guide. In many cases, that involves seeking out what emotions drive consumer behavior. 

Researchers have proved themselves quite creative but some might argue that innovation still isn't getting enough attention, as it's often seen as an add-on to the traditional instead of the heart of a research project. So I'd like to take a closer look at focusing exclusively on innovating in qualitative research and offer five tips to help researchers succeed in doing so.

1. Use a skilled researcher.

Truth be told, this first tip is not innovative at all but it is arguably the most important. As the saying goes: garbage in, garbage out. This is true when it comes to the researcher charged with digging up the insights. Whether a moderator, facilitator or ethnographer, if that person is not skilled at their craft, the resulting findings tend to be obvious, expected and not at all innovative.

2. Leverage the power of implicit methods.

Traditionally, research methods have relied wholly on explicit methods as a means of understanding consumer behavior. However, it has been proven that implicit methods (i.e., those that focus on revealing what consumers can't or won't tell us) are well-positioned to deliver actionable insights. These techniques, particularly implicit priming methods, can be implemented easily in traditional qualitative settings via tablets and other mobile devices.

Along with biometric measures, these innovative techniques are based on the same fundamental principle behind good traditional qualitative research: insight through observation, rather than direct questioning. This can give you good, confirmatory information on the types of emotions participants are feeling to complement the insights from projective qualitative techniques.

3. Hire a psychologist.

Or at the very least, employ researchers who know how to integrate the principles of psychology into qualitative research methods. 

Psychology is commonly understood to be the study of human behavior in an attempt to understand why humans do the things they do. The same principles can be applied to qualitative research to understand how consumers view the world around them and reveal the key drivers of their behavior, which can then be used to inform marketing communications tactics (e.g., advertising, PR, promotions, etc.).

4. Search for common emotional expression moments in human life.

Many qualitative firms use a range of familiar projective techniques to help ferret out insights. Some of the usual suspects are brand personifications like "If Brand A was a car, what kind of car would it be?" Or "Describe Brand A as a person." While these can provide some interesting color and tone about a brand, they still fall short in understanding how these perceptions impact the consumer on an emotional level. 

One way to innovate these techniques is to look to the victim impact experience in a courtroom. It comes straight from the soul of the individual, focuses on their emotions and feelings and paints a clear picture of the impact of this event in their lives. Other exercises might be to write your wedding vows to a particular brand or, conversely, a Dear John letter.

Using this technique, qualitative researchers will be armed with an understanding of how consumers are impacted by a specific brand, product or service that goes beyond simply understanding what consumers like or don't like about a brand.

5. Seek inspiration from the performing arts.

Improv is not just for actors anymore. Several industries have discovered the benefits of improvisational theater for gaining insight into a person's thoughts, feelings and relationships. This tool is primed for practical applications in the marketing research industry. Rather than leaning so heavily on traditional focus groups, research suppliers can design improv groups to have consumers recreate scenes that depict their feelings about specific business problems. If a client is focused on understanding consumers' attitudes and perceptions about their customer service, an improv situation can reveal more than simply asking them to rank or rate customer service on a five-point scale.

New for the sake of new

Keep in mind that new for the sake of new is irrelevant if we don't get meaningful and actionable insights that clients need to help reach their marketing goals and grow their business.

As marketing researchers, we have to keep that as our guidepost and be good stewards of our clients' budgets by designing research that utilizes methods that yield the richest insights. And if it happens to be new, all the better. But remember that insights are our goal - not novelty for novelty's sake.