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This past week’s Entrepreneur featured an article entitled “Big-Box Backlash: The Rebirth of Mom-and-Pop Shops.”  It is a good piece, highlighting how mom-and-pop shops are extending their reach to non-local folks.  (Ex: a local tourist store encouraging repurchase(s) via the shop’s online store.)

What this article didn’t point out is that this whole trend is predicated on uniqueness.  There are five dimensions of uniqueness regarding online shopping, which merchants cultivate in one (or more) ways:

Price.  Most consumers came online first to find lower/lowest pricing.  Remember the popularity of sites like Shopping.com and Nextag?

Variety.  As more stores went online, the variety seemed endless! Online sites could distinguish themselves for their depth of offerings within individual categories.

Accessibility.  Online suffers if someone needs an item “today,” but online stores quickly started offering next day service to help combat this “need it now” mindset – and to distinguish themselves from other online stores.   Amazon’s Prime service, which offers free two-day shipping for all qualified items, is an outgrowth, at least in part, in making its experience more accessible.

Service.  An online specialty store might be able to provide expertise in an area which can’t be found locally, meaning greater potential sales for the online merchant.  (If you knew the best home-stereo speaker expert was in MN, and his prices were only 10% more, getting exactly what you needed might warrant the 10% premium.)  Additionally, for items people want to see or try before buying, liberal return policies help offset this problem; think of Zappos’ free shipping – both ways – as a program designed to make people feel they’re “trying before buying.”

Values.  A frequently overlooked aspect to uniqueness, shopper “values” provide context to purchase decisions.  Values often reflect how a purchase-decision “tie” will be broken:  Where is the product made?  (Consumer may value Made in the USA products.)  Is the seller local? (Consumer may value supporting small local businesses.)  How is the product made?  (Consumer may value products made without pesticides and/or products farmed using “Fair Trade” practices.)  How involved is the company in the community?  (Consumer may value and choose to shop at a company which supports their personal values; e.g., Target knows education is important to its customer base and gives back to local schools.)

Will big-box stores like Walmart and Best Buy become obsolete?  No.  They offer good pricing and are very convenient (to get to and to return merchandise).  But will they ever be like a site whose sole focus is on featuring the “unique,” like the Daily Grommet?  I don’t think so.  And long-term loyalty may be impacted by limited perceived uniqueness, especially by shoppers who are less price or convenience driven.

As marketers, if we’re making commodity products, where it’s harder to compete on price, it’s important to look for the point of leverage with consumers – and that’s likely to be a reflection of their values.  In today’s climate, even if we think we have a unique offering, we need to keep thinking ahead to ensure this position in a changing business climate.   Qualitative research helps to explore value dimensions and how businesses can find appropriate ways to leverage its offerings today and looking forward.

Many focus group facilities are using email blasts to their database to help screen potential participants.  I’ve written on this subject before when the market was just heading in this direction, but over time my point of view has solidified.  As moderators hiring facilities/recruiters, we need to provide them with the best tools possible.  So, I’ve starting providing facilities with an email-blast screener plus the full screener at the start of all my projects.  If they don’t plan a blast, they can ignore that version.  However, by providing the email-blast version, I’m able to make sure of two things:

• The right questions are asked in the right way.
• That sufficient masking is provided so that participants don’t know who the client or what the topic is.

The Right Questions the Right Way.

When  I write a paper screener, the assumption is that the recruiters will speak to each participant by phone (even for online studies), so my screeners are written as “interviewer-administered.”  By definition, email blasts are “self-administered” and the questions must be written differently.

I try to ask more yes/no questions vs. those requiring detailed responses.  For instance, I don’t ask someone how often they consume a product in an email screener, but rather if they consume it. Facilities/recruiters may want to get at the frequency question via email (it will save them time), but I think that’s a mistake as it allows people to over-think potential responses before they’re called for the full screener.

Also, keep in mind that recruiters are typically not trained researchers.  It’s really not their job to know the impact of question wording or the nuances of changing a question from interviewer- to self-administered.  It’s my job.

Sufficient Masking.

There are two major ways that I mask the topic/client for the email blast:

• First, I make sure respondents will go through the entire survey.  (If an online survey tool is being used, I make sure there are no points of termination and ask that the back button is disabled.)
• I then limit the number of questions to 3-5 plus a few demos.  In my opinion, the more questions asked, the harder it is to mask the topic.

*  *  *

While clients approve the full screener, I don’t feel it necessary to share the email-blast version.  I’m not changing the question intent; I’m just adding a quality-control step to the process.

On my most recent study, I had a great recruit by both facilities.  The extra step of writing the email version took me an additional 30 minutes – well worth it.   And there was an added bonus:  I became a better client for the facilities because I helped them do their job better (and saved them time)!

One final thing:  I learned from some colleagues recently that facilities may be using Craigslist to find participants.  They’re now telling facilities that Craigslist can’t be used to recruit on their studies.  Another new item I’ll be adding to my recruiter instructions right away!

Last month was the Qualitative Research Consultant Association’s (QRCA) annual conference.  While there are always many little gems at these conferences which I take and use in my practice, one caught my attention this year as something which I know I’ll use in one form or another.

Ever had more than 4-6 concepts to test and weren’t sure how to get through 20 concepts in a single two-hour session?  Yes, I’ve had that happen more than once.  The most recent time, the concepts were all very good (i.e., clearly distinctive, well written ideas) and we really couldn’t cull down the number prior to the sessions starting.  After the first market, the client did streamline the concepts based on consumer feedback and all worked out well.  We used a more traditional grading approach, where abbreviated concepts were read and graded all at one time; we discussed the “best” performers in greater depth than the other concepts.

In the QRCA session I attended entitled “Unleashing the Power of Real People” by Justin Masterson and Jamie Johnson of Seek Research, they described an “auctioneering” approach:  they posted concept boards around the room and gave participants time to review reach one, making notes, quietly – as one might see people doing before an actual auction.  They actually employed an auctioneer to “call the items” (aka concepts) and participants bid on their preferred concepts.  Very quickly the better concepts emerged and were discussed in depth.  (An actual auctioneer isn’t really required if the moderator is comfortable, and I would be.  It sounds like great fun and a way to engage participants.)

Another option they’ve used is to have participants “invest” in concepts as though the concepts were products being sold on a stock exchange.  This approach I’m a bit more iffy about.  It moves the “bidding” into the area of what someone thinks will do well in the market vs. their personal reaction to an idea.  There have been quantitative approaches which use this “market knowledge” approach, and I’ve heard mixed reviews from clients about using them.

Yet, there are times when I would use the stock exchange idea to get to the meat of concept discussion.  For instance, if I were doing a group of “prosumers” (marketing or operations professionals from other industries as participants to solve a problem)  I think this approach makes sense; it would get these very left-brained participants to go with their gut reactions.

What are your thoughts about this idea?  Is it something you might use?

A short time ago, Ricardo Lopez of Hispanic Research, Inc. came to speak to my local chapter of QRCA (Qualitative Research Consultants Association) on alternative social media platforms we should consider when “building our brand.” I’d seen an image awhile back, showing content comparisons between Twitter and Facebook, which I thought he’d like to see.  Despite my best efforts, I couldn’t find the image again.

During this search, I kept seeing one word over and over again:  infographic.  When had that term become so mainstream?  I really like these visual depictions of quantitative data – they’re more fun and easier to understand, plus they are often able communicate much more information.  I’ve talked about infographics before in a newsletter piece, but never here.

To give you a couple of fun examples:  the first showcases how restaurant sales went up, comparing chains within the fast food and sit-down segments.  A much more engaging chart than the graphics of yesteryear! (Source:  DesignReviver.com)

This is my favorite recent one, from Shanghai Web Designers.  It visually summarizes what is done every 60 seconds on the Web:  70+ domain names are registered; 600+ new videos are uploaded to YouTube, 1,500 new blog posts go live – just to name a few.  The scope of the Internet’s impact is clearly seen in this one snapshot.

In qualitative research, infographics morph into something else.

• Personas are used to offer a feel for a target audience.
• Illustrations are used to explain a theory or concept, such at the one I used when explaining Situational Decision-Making in this blog post (click here).
• Collages are used to showcase a variety of things, including harder-to-articulate feelings about a brand.
• Word Clouds are created from qualitative answers to highlight which words are used most often.

With the flood of infographics on the quantitative research side, my sense is that on the qualitative side, we need to bring what we’re doing up a notch – we can do better.  So over the next few months, I intend to play when I’m reporting.  I’m seeing some new tools on sites like MakeUseOf.com and, for a nominal fee, Gliffy.com.  Maybe I’ll succeed and maybe I won’t. But it’ll be fun trying!

Any ideas you’d share about how you’re making qualitative research findings more visual – without the use of video?  Would love to hear from you!!

(RSS/Email Subscribers:  Having trouble seeing the images in this post?  Click on the post title and view the blog on the website.)

Over the past six months or so, I’ve had more than a few studies where I’ve heard loud and clear something that I haven’t heard articulated quite this strongly before:  “Don’t tell me about me.  Tell me about you and why you might be good for me, and I’ll decide what I think about you.”

There are two aspects to this:

• The use of superlatives is becoming (more of) a turn-off in concept statements and advertising.  I am seeing this more with younger participants, but I hear it from time-to-time from the “older” folks as well.   “Best” or “better than” is not the tone they want to hear; using or including the “best of something” (e.g., best quality ingredients) – if the key benefits support the claim – is more acceptable.
• Greater value is being placed on the parts (individual) vs. the whole.  I haven’t heard in quite some time someone say “that’s a great CD.”  They like a particular song.  They download it, put it on their iPod or other device, and customize their listening experience.  That focus on being able to customize experiences is helping to drive how they react to new products and ideas.

For example, I can’t image Pepsi coming out with an ad campaign today saying “The Choice of a New Generation.”  This new generation would blog about the ridiculousness of that claim – “you’re telling us what’s our choice?!”

If this is all sounding very left-brained and logical, that’s not my intent.  I’ve often said that unless there’s a connection between a consumer and a brand, a sale will never take place.  That connection can be emotional and/or rational, but it needs to happen.

And yet, my sense is that there this is an evolution to individuality that’s becoming more pronounced.  Companies need to become increasingly more sensitive when choosing how to position themselves and their products.  Until this morning, the best case example I could give was the “I’m a Mac” campaign from Apple.  As you know, they put it out there – I’m a PC vs. I’m a Mac.  In effect, they’re asking, “which one are you like?”

But just today, I saw a headline of “Design-your-own skincare, including ingredients and concentrations” (via Springwise).  Of course, I had to go visit this site.  Turns out that you can custom blend your own cosmetics from natural ingredients. From the www.mycodage.com/an website:

Convinced that every skin is unique and deserves special treatment, in 2006 Amandine and Julien, with the help of many experts, developed a technology that allows you to customize your product to suit the specific needs of each skin.  Codage was born.  100% made in France, CODAGE today delivers worldwide – from its French laboratories directly to you.

A bit stilted in the French to English translation, but how much more personal can you get than that??

As always, I’m interested in your thoughts!