Session 5 (17.08.10)

Focus group discussion

 

• is the process of obtaining possible ideas or solution
• to a mktg. problem
• from a group of respondents
• by discussing it.

• Each participant in a group of five to nine or more is encouraged to express views in each topic and to elaborate on or react to the views of the other participants.
• Advantage of focus-group discussion is that it offers participants more stimulation than an interview.

Types of Focus-Groups

 

There are three types of focus groups:

1. Exploratory focus groups
2. Clinical focus groups
3. experiencing focus groups

Exploratory Focus Group

 

• Commonly used at the exploratory phase of the mkt. research process to aid in defining the problem precisely.
• It can also be used as pilot testing
• Exploratory groups can be used to generate hypotheses for testing or concepts for future research.

Clinical Focus Groups

 

• Involves qualitative research in its most scientific form
• The research is conducted as a scientific endeavor.
• Clinical groups require a moderator with expertise in psychology and sociology.
• Findings are difficult to validate and hence are less popular.

Experiencing Focus Groups

 

• Allows the researcher to experience the emotional framework in which the product is being used.

Applications of Focus Groups

 

Focus groups can be used to address substantive issues such as:

 

• Understanding consumers’ perceptions, preferences and behavior concerning a product category.
• Obtaining impressions of new product concepts.
• Generating new ideas about older products
• Developing creative concepts and copy material for advertisements
• Securing price impressions
• Obtaining preliminary consumer reaction to specific mktg. programs

 Methodological applications of focus groups include:

• Defining a problem more precisely
• Generating alternative courses of action
• Developing an approach to a problem
• Obtaining information helpful in structuring consumer questionnaires
• Generating hypotheses that can be tested quantitatively
• Interpreting previously obtained quantitative results.

Depth Interviews

• Depth interviews are another method of obtaining qualitative data.
• It is an unstructured, direct, personal interview in which a single respondent is probed by a highly skilled interviewer to uncover underlying motivations, beliefs, attitudes, and feelings on a topic.

Techniques of depth interviews

1. Laddering
2. Hidden issue questioning
3. Symbolic analysis.

Laddering

• In laddering, line of questioning proceeds from product characteristics to user characteristics.
• This allows the researcher to tap into the consumers’ network of meanings.
• It provides a way to probe into consumers’ deep underlying psychological and emotional reasons that affect their purchasing decisions.

Hidden issue questioning
A type of depth interview that attempts to locate personal sore spots related to deeply felt personal concerns.


Symbolic Analysis
A technique for conducting depth interviews in which the symbolic meaning of objects is analyzed by comparing them with opposites.


Applications of depth interviews

• Depth interviews can be effectively employed in special problem situations, such as those requiring:
• Detailed probing of respondent
• Discussion of confidential, sensitive, or embarrassing topics (personal finances etc)
• Situations where strong social norms exists and the respondents may be easily swayed by group response.
• Detailed understanding of complicated behavior
• Interviews with professional people
• Interviews with competitors, who are unlikely to reveal the information in a group setting
• Situations where the product consumption experience is sensory in nature, affecting mood states and emotions.

Projective techniques

• They attempt to disguise the purpose of the research.
• It is an unstructured, indirect form of questioning that encourages respondents to project their underlying motivations, beliefs, attitudes, or feeling regarding the issues of concern.
• In projective techniques, respondents are asked to interpret the behavior of others rather than describe their own behavior.
• It is assumed that while interpreting the behavior of others, respondents indirectly project their own motivations, beliefs, attitudes, or feelings into the situation.

Projective techniques are classified as:

• Association techniques
• Completion techniques
• Sentence completion
• Story completion
• Construction techniques
• Picture response
• Cartoon tests
• Expressive techniques
• Role playing
• Third person technique