Following the ESOMAR Neuroscience seminar in June 2011, it became clear that ESOMAR has a role to play in helping the Neuroscience area of research to grow and flourish in the years to come. Alongside a team of experts we believe that this can best be archived by producing a set of questions. In essence the "36 questions to help commission neuroscience research" is a set of questions which will help buyers ensure they are using the correct neuroscience tool for their research purpose while helping providers of neuroscience tools meet the needs of their clients.
In order to clarify our thinking about questionnaire design, it will be helpful to break down the issues associated with it into distinct groupings. A useful four way classification of these groups is as follows: a) meeting research objectives b) obtaining valid and reliable data from respondents c) facilitating the interviewerâs task and subsequent data processing d) achieving and maintaining respondent involvement. Groupings b), c) and d) are dealt with in the individual sections of this chapter. However, the first group of issues connected with meeting research objectives deserves special mention at this preliminary stage.
In this chapter, we examine how market researchers set about designing market research studies. Market researchers will rarely be able to pursue their idealâ design, so it is a process of compromise. Decisions have to be made about what degree of precision is needed and how much depth of understanding is required. This trade-off also needs to be balanced against the time and budget available for the study. Furthermore, market researchers must take into account the practicality of different approaches, whilst ensuring the study is ethical and also complies with the ICC/ESOMAR International Code of Marketing and Social Research Practice as well as the codes of conducts of national societies. To help the reader make informed trade-offs in designing a study, in this chapter we systematically work through the research design process, beginning with the critical issue of clarifying the exact nature of the problem to be researched. But first, some scene-setting is presented.
Since the earliest days of marketing and social research, attempts have been made to group populations and survey respondents into classes: groupings which discriminate between people in ways which are considered likely to be relevant to the research objectives. We all know from our own experience that people from different social groups differ not only in what they can afford but in their preferences and habits. Such information has always been used to set quotas for samples and in the analysis of survey results; frequently the classification variables are âproxiesâ for what the researcher is really interested in but is unable to measure directly, such as their tastes and attitudes towards the product in question. Classification variables such as sex and age are straightforward to obtain. In this chapter we look at one of the oldest, but still most vexed and problematic, classifications: social class or socio-economic grading.
As more qualitative approaches become available, through imports and innovation, and as persuasive qualitative agencies tend to brilliantly argue for their specific methods, there seems to be a need for some clarification. The view that a given method may be universally superior is too simplistic. Based on our international experience and discussions with users as well as practitioners, we offer a typology of qualitative methodologies with the aspiration to prove that each one of them has the right to live within its area of expertise. We show how each of the methods, "cognitive", "motivation- al", "cultural/holistic", and "interactive/creative" is culturally determined. Only after describing these methods comparatively do we examine the multiple dimensions of marketing research objectives, referring them all along to the typology. This investigation of research objectives is a way of breaking from set patterns and adopting a fresher outlook. As a contribution to intercultural communications, we end this presentation with a list of English and French terms used in qualitative research.
Successful and effective multinational qualitative research strongly depends on coordinating methods and styles. Coordinating agencies today, must adopt a sensitive but strong, flexible but sturdy approach and work in cooperation with the local researchers. The approach must be chosen to best affect the quality of the fieldwork, the analysis and interpretation of the results and, more importantly, the usefulness of the study and of the resulting strategies. We are working in a field where fine tuning of the research objectives and methodologies has become increasingly important, therefore, an interactive coordinating method seems to be the one that best provides effective results for the Clients' needs in international marketing.
This section, as in earlier editions, concentrates on marketing research techniques. While the section is aimed principally at practitioners and students of market research, it may also prove useful to the market research user as a guide to the methods by which the answers sought are obtained. The section is written around the time sequence involved in carrying out a market research project. Thus, it starts with defining the problem and gaining the necessary background information before going on to techniques employed to solve marketing problems. An attempt has been made to cover all of the major research techniques now employed perhaps at the sacrifice of depth in the analysis of the use and limitations of each technique examined. Each contributor has attempted to show the purpose of the technique covered in the chapter, its advantages and disadvantages, how it actually operates and, in each case, where to look for further information.
The Baby Panel is an example of the panel technique being very successfully adapted to measure a market where buyers remain for a relatively short period of time and yet during that time their characteristics change dramatically. One might summarise panel techniques as offering two different types of measurement: - Firstly the study of changes over time in the behaviour of individuals or groups of individuals. Secondly the study of changes in the pattern and trends of the total market over time. This paper describes very briefly how these objectives have been met by the Baby Panel since January 1967 and it concentrates on the problems we have encountered, some of which have been solved satisfactorily, others, at present defying really satisfactory solutions.
It has become commonplace to note the growing use of sophisticated techniques in processing market research: cluster analysis and segmentation analysis, as well as factor analysis, discriminant analysis, canonical analysis, multivariate analysis of variance and, more recently, multidimensional scaling of perception and preference. Naturally, the results of these different techniques are of more or less satisfactory practical use depending on the degree of skill and acumen of the researcher who uses them. We feel however that disillusions are particularly high in the field which interests us, that which covers the uses of cluster analysis and segment analysis programs. We will attempt here to discern the cause of these disillusions and, if possible, to define a more judicious use of these methods until such time as the statistician perfects them, making them easier for the practician to employ. The analysis of the practical problems encountered in using cluster analysis and segment analysis programs in our company prompted us to sort these difficulties into three classes, which form the structure of my paper. Class 1 comprises the difficulties involved in choosing a method in consideration of the objectives of the research effort. Class II is connected with the methods themselves, and more particularly with the invariance of the results obtained. Class III is connected, we find with a certain ambiguity of the notion of segment as understood by the marketing man on the one hand and the statistician on the other. After dealing with these three classes, I shall conclude by examining a few means now available to get around these difficulties.
The paper points out some reasons for the contrasts between agricultural and commercial market research. Because of the relatively small size of agricultural firms these are in general not in a position to carry out market research of their own. With few exceptions this is true also with respect to trading and processing firms in the agricultural sector. On the other hand there is a need for market research not only in the interest of producers but also for purposes of economic policy and consumer information. Agricultural market research, therefore, predominantly is financed by public expenditures. Given this situation agricultural market research shows some unique features with respect to research objectives and impact of research findings. It is recommended to distinguish direct and indirect effects of the research work.
On the subject of editorial research the group mentioned two things: first, the difficulty that researchers have in communicating with editors; and secondly the dilemma between satisfying objective management needs and the political objectives of the editor - a situation which exists in many countries. There followed an extended discussion on the subject of how people obtain their newspapers .
Although market research on the sales side cannot be regarded as a reflection of procurement market research, there are nevertheless many similarities. The buyer as market researcher can, in other words, obtain much inspiration from research into the sales market in the realm of survey, processing and evaluation techniques and can borrow much from them.