Comments on: Counting qualitative research.

By: hartw

hartw — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 18:57:57 +0000

ZJ, isn't brandtags mostly the associations of current and would-be marketers who come to the site via blogs like yours? Is there something more to it? For example, more systematic sampling, real quant measures (not just varied type sizes), and equivalence of people rating different brands?

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 13:57:00 +0000

ZJ, isn’t brandtags mostly the associations of current and would-be marketers who come to the site via blogs like yours? Is there something more to it? For example, more systematic sampling, real quant measures (not just varied type sizes), and equivalence of people rating different brands?

By: tomneveril

tomneveril — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 06:02:31 +0000

The problem with Brand Tags and most attitudinal studies: they provide precise metrics about conscious thought. But in reality, it's the SUBconscious that drives most behavior –including purchases. So, I'd like to know about new quant tools that can ethically track audience behavior; including marketing interactions, shopping, & brand usage behaviors outside of the web. (UPC scan data is an old but good example of tracking purchase behavior.) Tracking people via GPS/cell phones would be nice –but it's way too big brother-ish. In any case, we need more tools that reveal experiences and actions, not more ways to ask questions.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 01:02:00 +0000

The problem with Brand Tags and most attitudinal studies: they provide precise metrics about conscious thought. But in reality, it’s the SUBconscious that drives most behavior –including purchases. So, I’d like to know about new quant tools that can ethically track audience behavior; including marketing interactions, shopping, & brand usage behaviors outside of the web. (UPC scan data is an old but good example of tracking purchase behavior.) Tracking people via GPS/cell phones would be nice –but it’s way too big brother-ish. In any case, we need more tools that reveal experiences and actions, not more ways to ask questions.

By: Matt Daniels

Matt Daniels — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 10:49:05 +0000

The problem with Quant is that one's answer is affected by the wording, order, and tone of questions. I'd agree that brandtags gets around this, but for a typical survey, every person is wooed by incomprehensible things that irrationally change a person's choices.

This surely happens in Qual as well, but I'd like to think its easier to diagnose the “big picture” of what someone's thinking when you looking right at them.

By: Matt Daniels

Matt Daniels — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 05:49:00 +0000

The problem with Quant is that one’s answer is affected by the wording, order, and tone of questions. I’d agree that brandtags gets around this, but for a typical survey, every person is wooed by incomprehensible things that irrationally change a person’s choices.

This surely happens in Qual as well, but I’d like to think its easier to diagnose the “big picture” of what someone’s thinking when you looking right at them.

By: Gil

Gil — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 20:22:41 +0000

A great example of this is the data we get from tools such as Radian6, the various Google analytics tools etc. When used to analyze the posts, comments and linking habits across blogs, twitter, online communities etc. we can take away quantitative learning about scale and breadth as well as the more nuanced sentiments that come from qualitative research.

By: adrianho

adrianho — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 19:54:15 +0000

Advertising types are probably going to be more sensitive about brand perceptions than non advertising types (although that's also not necessarily true these days anymore) However, not all qual is about getting insight from one specific group. Often what you're trying to do is to capture the spread of all possible reactions or feelings about a certain subject and gauge which are stronger/weaker etc. For this I'm not sure it matters whether I know who's answering or not, it really matters more that I have enough people answering to get the spread.

By: searchanddestroy

searchanddestroy — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 19:39:44 +0000

more to the point about brand tags and “who” is saying what – brandtags awareness among advertising types 100%, awareness among non-advertising types 0%. that obviously is not scientifiic, but i cant find a single person outside of my work circle that (a) knows about brandtags and (b) would spend time adding associations.

i do, however, see a tremendous amount of value in the methodology and its ability to leverage scale. perhaps there is a better, more natural way to pull this data from the innernets.

By: curiouslypersistent

curiouslypersistent — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 18:07:32 +0000

Perhaps Brand Tags isn't the best example. It might be useful in informing “what” people are thinking, but it isn't (yet) able to give the most important piece of information – “who” is saying these things.

And of course, for the nuance, the “how” and “why” are pretty important.

I definitely agree though that other online opinion aggregators can offer real value when planning.

By: Gil

Gil — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 15:22:00 +0000

By: adrianho

adrianho — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 14:54:00 +0000

Advertising types are probably going to be more sensitive about brand perceptions than non advertising types (although that’s also not necessarily true these days anymore) However, not all qual is about getting insight from one specific group. Often what you’re trying to do is to capture the spread of all possible reactions or feelings about a certain subject and gauge which are stronger/weaker etc. For this I’m not sure it matters whether I know who’s answering or not, it really matters more that I have enough people answering to get the spread.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 14:39:00 +0000

i do, however, see a tremendous amount of value in the methodology and its ability to leverage scale. perhaps there is a better, more natural way to pull this data from the innernets.

By: curiouslypersistent

curiouslypersistent — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 13:07:00 +0000

Perhaps Brand Tags isn’t the best example. It might be useful in informing “what” people are thinking, but it isn’t (yet) able to give the most important piece of information – “who” is saying these things.

And of course, for the nuance, the “how” and “why” are pretty important.

I definitely agree though that other online opinion aggregators can offer real value when planning.

By: taulpaul

taulpaul — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 00:10:33 +0000

While I rely heavy on quantitative data to make online marketing decisions, I have become more reliant on my colleague Mark Wagner's qualitative and observational data, over the past year. Bringing all three data sets together has allowed for interesting discussion, and allowed to point out irregularities that can be looked into further. This has allowed us catch several missed opportunities.