The NGMR Top-5-Hot vs. Top-5-Not: From “Fixed” to “Fluid”

Upon invitation by Next Generation Market Research Group, bloggers from around the world each contributed to a group post Top 5-Hot vs. Top-5-Not’ topics in market research.  What follows is this blogger’s take on the topic.

The Qualitative Arena: A more flexible, “fluid,” modular approach is what’s hot today, requiring market researchers to be faster, more flexible, and more nimble on their feet than ever.  That’s because of many factors, including:

• The Economy. Today’s economical challenges that make clients more aware than ever of value for the money
• High Tech. The advent of new technologies (e.g., flipcams, smart phones) that enjoy increasingly widespread penetration and enable faster, more flexible feedback from participants
• Greater Demand for Speed (side effect of high tech). The demand for fast turnaround times given the faster pace of doing business (thanks in part to technological innovations)
• Facebook et al. The growth of social media, providing raw data and the potential for real time research (as well as the risk of misusing the information)
• Going Global.  Greater globalization requires methods that can handle physical, linguistic, and cultural “distances”

So, in accordance with these trends, here are the top 5 Hot and 5 Not Hot Not ways of doing research these days:

What’s Hot:

• Hybrid research, including qualitative forays during, before, and/or after quantitative surveys–as a way of streamlining the process and getting faster actionable results
• “In the moment” ethnographic type research following respondents wherever they go, in shopping, or performing specific tasks, as a more “naturalistic” method, and a check on more traditional methods
• Multidimensional input (pictures, video, audio, behavioral, etc.) to enhance and extend participant’s verbal responses
• Client participation in research/research design (with, at one end, do-it-yourselfers trying to make sense of social media and panel participants themselves, without the guidance of research professionals)
• Global projects requiring guidance and materials sensitive to language and cultural differences and here in particular, the need for remote, online methods

What’s Not:

• Large-scale studies with slow turnaround and hefty, wordy, reports
• Studies using only face to face, or one means of gathering data
• Geographically dispersed studies that require travel to all locations (instead of, say, in-person portions combined with remote techniques)
• Groups based on wide screening criteria (i.e., tighter demographic clusters representing greater diversity more the norm)
• Strictly verbal reports of what’s happening/what’s happened (instead of watching it occur, or learning first-hand through respondent diaries)

So what else is hot or not these days?  Please feel free to add to the list!