Traditional marketing has long recognized the important role of market research. Perhaps the one area where the marketer and the market researcher might actually agree to disagree is the. extent to which gut feel and experience are considered as viable replacement for objective market feedback from the end consumer. Both sides can quote many examples to make a strong case for both the successes or failures of intuition (or market feel) on the one hand and carefully researched and subsequently fine-tuned marketing strategies that have been successful (or indeed otherwise) on the other. One area where intuition is most often allowed to run its full course is in the area of concept and advertising development. Typically the process starts with a marketer briefing his agency on his perceptions of the consumers attitudes, motivations and behaviour. This may be, and often is, a combination of in-market experience and any research that may have been carried out - and that hopeftilly offers such insight
This paper attempts to posit a general theory of cultural differences and their implications to you as the international qualitative research practitioner. The model developed should, we believe, be used as a thought-provoker at the earliest stages of the planning of cross-cultural qualitative research. We believe it can be extremely useful in improving on: - group recruitment quality - the effectiveness of the topic guide - moderating techniques and the response quality All of which make for a "good group". It can also be useful in understanding: - why certain approaches can or cannot be used - why local resources may indicate certain approaches cannot be used when occasionally they actually could, and ought to be tried.