The dreaded 'f' word (fragmentation) and pressures on budgets are the only two irrefutable facts in today's uncertain world of marketing. This isn't news but there is a greater need than ever to clearly establish priorities of marketing investment. This paper outlines a new consumer-centric framework that addresses issues of channel planning and budget allocation by bridging the world of consumer and shopper to quantify the role and influence of each touchpoint along a consumer's journey to purchase; and measuring the impact of all potential brand touchpoints - from advertising to non-advertising, from traditional to digital media, from word of mouth to point-of-purchase.
This paper focuses on aspects of Qualitative Research, where it has played the role of Sherlock Holmes to dig deep into consumer context and generated options to crack barriers and deliver new insights.It is based on the premise that Qualitative Research in its function of a Constant Surveyor is critical to alleviating marketing problems, especially those plagued by Myopia of Obvious (MOO). As a phenomenon MOO is not constrained by stages in product lifecycles, product categories, cultural contexts, marketing and business specific situations.Thus, it is hypothesized that the constant surveyor status quo of Qualitative Research would in the days to come, become a standard complementary parallel to other business functions such as marketing, sales, HR, etc.
It is a well-established fact that with maturing product categories and hyperactivity in the marketplace, a marketer needs to constantly evaluate the products position and offer relevant and unique consumer benefits. This is achieved either through constant changes in the product and marketing strategies or through new product/communication development. Market research could act as a conduit for an innovative marketer driving such changes. Therefore, while most research focuses on understanding the consumer behaviour and attitudes related to specific issues, the methodology we suggest attempts at looking at issues from not just one, but various aspects. This paper focuses on a research process that takes a broad or holistic approach towards understanding the consumer as opposed to understanding the consumer in bits and pieces as and when required. We suggest a different approach for doing this, which has been supported with the help of a case study of a leading consumer durables company.
For the sake of consistency across markets in today's global environment are we as researchers becoming insensitive to the subtle variations that exist in respondents' understanding and processing of the questions we pose to them? This question is pertinent not just across markets but within the same market itself... and gains even more significance in a large and diverse country such as India. This paper puts forth experimental work which re-examines the way quantitative research is done in India in the hope the learnings would find application in other countries which face similar issues. More specifically it brings the consumers' perspective in developing appropriate research design and framing of questions thereby permitting researchers to use scales that would be closer to the consumers' own response pattern and hence elicit a truer response. It also helps identify the differences in the capability to respond to a quantitative questionnaire amongst consumers representing various social strata.
With an increasing globalisation of brands, there is a need to communicate similar brand images and values to consumers all over the world. While this is necessary, it is also important to recognise, understand and interpret the cultural context of different markets and reflect them in communication. Often, it is difficult to pick out these cultural nuances and reflect (or eliminate) them in advertising. The Culture Filter (TCF) is a technique that seeks to provide a framework that identifies these elements and aids marketers in the development of communication that thinks global and acts local.