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This chapter focuses on the role of marketing research for marketing firms, especially qualitative methods. Marketing research is sometimes criticised for offering limited values to marketers and managers, and for contributing little to the company's overall success. This opinion is a simplification and often results from experience with low-quality research. The experiences of many companies show that data-driven marketing is a successful strategy to build competitive advantage. Qualitative marketing research plays an important role in this. In order to conduct good and useful qualitative research, one has to first grasp the specific nature of this method and understand how it differs from quantitative research. Many people treat qualitative research as a worse, flawed type of research. This is a fallacious approach. Qualitative research is just as useful as quantitative but serves a different purpose, providing answers to different questions, and is conducted differently. Contemporary qualitative research has evolved from being sociological in nature, endeavouring to describe society and general phenomena, to a more psychological nature, attempting to search for explanations of phenomena by understanding a single consumer in the broader context and the complex—often unconscious—psychological processes underlying consumer decisions.

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The objective of this chapter is to show that traditional consumer decision-making models, assuming that they are conscious and can be explored based on declarations, lead to the wrong and improper marketing research methods being applied. In light of contemporary discoveries from social sciences, psychology, behavioural economics, neurobiology, and brain science, we know that many human processes are unconscious and automatic and people have limited access to them. Following this, the approach to the consumer should be revised—a consumer has very limited awareness of the true sources of their own attitudes and the motives underlying their behaviour, as many processes are unconscious and automatic. This knowledge should be taken into account in all stages of qualitative marketing research, from formulating research goals and choosing particular methods, to analysing and interpreting the research results. In order to provide consumer knowledge that is valuable for marketing decisions, qualitative research should move away from looking for concrete pieces of information connected to the researched product (issue). Instead, it should be more interested in gleaning in-depth contextual information—the consumer should be seen in the broader context of their life, values, and needs, as well as their own history regarding the category and brand.

Pages: 17

The aim of this chapter is to examine the most classic areas of marketing where research based on qualitative methods is highly valuable for marketers in decision-making. While both quantitative and qualitative research are used to study some of these areas, qualitative methods play a particularly important role. In other areas discussed, qualitative methods are crucial for understanding specific problems. This chapter will first cover research areas related to understanding the consumer, including studies on attitudes, opinions, and beliefs, as well as research into motives and barriers. The second area is segmentation research, which helps to understand the complexity of consumers, develop consumer typologies, select a target group from among the identified segments, and create communication strategies tailored to that group. The third area focuses on product-related research, including studies on concepts, product features, packaging, and naming. The fourth area covers communication research, particularly advertising studies. The final area concerns research on decision-making processes, aiming to understand how consumers make choices regarding products or brands and what factors influence these decisions.

Pages: 14

This chapter is dedicated to discussing new and less typical areas of the use of qualitative methods in research practice. Beyond their classical applications in marketing—such as concept testing, positioning, or communication research—qualitative methods are also being used in new fields, driven by changes in consumer experiences and behaviours arising from the evolution of the surrounding world (including technological development). A crucial and rapidly growing field in recent years is consumer experience research (known as CX research, from consumer or customer experience) and user experience research (known as UX research). Another important area where qualitative methods are increasingly applied is media research, particularly social media research, given their growing role in the contemporary world and their influence on consumer behaviour. There is also a notable rise in the use of qualitative methods in internal organisational research, including HR (Human Resources) and PR (Public Relations) studies. Another key area discussed in this chapter is the use of qualitative methods in research aimed at solving social problems, particularly to change human attitudes and behaviours—an approach sometimes referred to as communication research. Although the research areas mentioned above are not always directly related to marketing or product sales, they rely heavily on classic qualitative research methods and will, therefore, be discussed in this chapter.

Pages: 34

The aim of this chapter is to present various qualitative methods with special emphasis on their specific features and limitations and their areas of application in contemporary qualitative marketing research. Apart from the most classic methods that include focus group interviews (FGIs) and individual in-depth interviews (IDIs), this chapter also expounds the less common but increasingly popular methods. These methods include dyads (particularly ones combining the qualities of individual and group interviews), ethnographic research (conducted in the consumer's natural environment), shop-along research, observational techniques, and increasingly popular online qualitative research (bulletin board, market research online communities, and classic individual and group interviews conducted online). The chapter also details certain focus group interview variations used in marketing research (e.g., mini-groups, extended groups, reconvent groups, concept labs, affinity groups, and confrontation groups). The specific nature, applications, and limitations of these methods in marketing research have also been described. Advanced qualitative marketing research relies increasingly less on a single method and even more on a combination of different quantitative and qualitative approaches, each answering slightly different research questions. Thus, when planning marketing research, it is helpful to bear in mind the diversity of available research tools and understand their specific features.

Pages: 32

A shift in thinking about consumers (from conscious to unconscious) has led to more widespread use of projective and enabling techniques in marketing research instead of declaration- and introspection-based metrics. Projection as a concept and projective techniques as a research tool are grounded in psychology and psychiatry and have been applied in marketing since the 1950s but their role in modern qualitative research is changing. They are used less in diagnosing the consumer and more in analysing the object of research (brand, product category, advertising). The understanding of the unconscious (revealed by projective techniques) also changed. It does not draw from psychoanalytical and clinical approaches (resulting from the consumer's inner and unaccepted conflicts) but from the cognitive perspective (adaptation to stimuli overload). Both popular and commonly used marketing research techniques and proprietary methods have been discussed. Various types of projective and enabling techniques have been reviewed (applied in an individual and in a group interviews, verbal and non-verbal, relational and non-relational) along with the principles underlying the introduction of projective and enabling techniques in qualitative research. The rules underlying stimuli selection, the introduction of them to respondents, and the ground rules for their analysis and interpretation have also been set out.

Pages: 36

Research planning is a crucial, but often underestimated, phase of qualitative marketing research. It first involves translating research objectives (why we are conducting research) into research goals (what we want to find out), followed by selecting the right method and developing the research schemata. Contrary to appearances, knowledge from building experimental research schemata (quantitative methods) on controlling variables and the fundamentals of drawing conclusions are very useful at research planning stage also in qualitative study. Deciding on the respondent selection criteria is next. The first but often forgotten thing to be done is to define the purposive and often behavioural criteria directly linked to research goals (e.g., brand or category use), to be later (if at all) followed by socio-demographic variables (sex, age, education, income). Adding them to the selection criteria as additional variables is optional. The significance of demographic variables in respondent selection is often overestimated in qualitative marketing research. The wrong decisions in the research planning phase (method choice, schemata building, selection criteria) often lead to research that fails to provide answers to marketing and research questions. Research planning rules helping to maximise the usefulness of results for clients and avoid typical mistakes at this stage of qualitative research have also been provided.

Pages: 20

This chapter presents the rules for creating the basic tool in qualitative research—the discussion guide. A qualitative research scenario isn't a survey questionnaire requiring the same questions to be posed identically to each respondent. A script (often called a topic guide or discussion guide, which perfectly reflects its specificity) merely sets the direction in which the discussion is heading. It should be focused on the research goals and problems, which are going to be discussed, rather than on phrasing specific questions. The role of the interview script as the moderator's vital tool changes along with the experience gained by the moderator but still plays a very important role as a communication tool with the client. It shows whether the issues that are important to the client will be reflected in the interview, the order of the topics discussed, as well as the projective and enabling techniques used along with their intended purpose. A qualitative interview scenario is not a questionnaire and is not about phrasing specific questions to be put during the interview in an identical form and order but about showing the areas and ways of searching for information.

Pages: 27

Anyone can be a qualitative research moderator but not everyone is a good moderator with whom clients want to work and for whom clients are ready to switch research agencies to hang on to “their” moderator. This chapter is dedicated to the role of the moderator in qualitative marketing research and to defining the characteristics of a good moderator. Being a moderator is part craft and part art. Experience is hugely important but it goes hand-in-hand with the necessary individual traits (cognitive skills) and interpersonal and social skills, but most of all, however, the ability to build rapport with respondents. Interview facilitation skills like active listening and the use of the right tools (e.g., probing, paraphrasing, and clarifying) are also crucial. A good qualitative research moderator is also a person who has knowledge of psychology (general knowledge about the human person), consumer behaviour, and marketing (specific knowledge relating to the researched issues)—understands how advertising works, how consumer decisions are made, and knows the mechanisms underpinning consumer behaviour. This chapter describes all the traits that make a good moderator and discusses the ways to develop skills conducive to becoming an even better qualitative marketing research moderator.

Pages: 29

The analysis and interpretation of qualitative research is immensely challenging, particularly for beginner qualitative marketing researchers. There are less hard and fast rules that must be followed when it comes to analysing qualitative data compared to quantitative. Qualitative analysis is largely based on the researcher's experience and usually leaves lots of room for different interpretations. This is unquestionably an advantage of qualitative research but also carries a certain risk of overinterpretation and drawing the wrong conclusions. Qualitative data analysis is a complex intellectual process involving data categorisation, searching for dependencies and interrelationships, making comparisons, and summing up of observations to answer the research questions. Writing up a qualitative research report is the art of making the right choices and good selections. Not everything that appears in the interview should be included in the report and a good researcher can pick out what is truly important from the insignificant that could overshadow the most important research findings. The chapter lays down the ground rules for drawing up a qualitative marketing research report, the various stages involved in its development, and the main forms of presenting qualitative research results (debriefings, top-lines, reports, and oral presentations).

Pages: 18

Qualitative marketing research continues to provoke controversy and concern regarding its future. On the one hand, it maintains a stable position among other forms of marketing research (e.g., in terms of its share of companies' marketing research expenditure). On the other hand, new methods and tools occasionally emerge that proclaim the end of qualitative research. This chapter offers a reflection on the future of qualitative marketing research. New research approaches that have emerged over the years (e.g., ethnography, semiotics, neuromarketing, co-creation, online qualitative research), despite such concerns or predictions, have not replaced classic qualitative research. Rather, they serve as valuable supplements, each contributing new insights to our understanding of the consumer. This chapter explores the impact of Big Data, which has been influential for over a decade, and, above all, the growing use of artificial intelligence (AI) models in qualitative marketing research. This chapter will examine the qualitative research process step by step, highlighting opportunities to apply various AI solutions along the way. Furthermore, this chapter will discuss how AI can be used to strengthen the quality of the researcher's work, as well as the potential threats that AI may pose to the role of the researcher in the future.