Almost all marketers understand the value of proper research, and as the primary stakeholders for most research projects sanctioned by their organisations, most of them are well aware of the common methodologies available in research. Therefore, without dwelling on it for too long, we will briefly touch upon the two most common research modes that are widely practiced, Qualitative and Quantitative research.
Revisiting the Qual-Quant argument!
Both qualitative and quantitative research are invaluable for brands, each bringing their own set of virtues to the table. Qualitative research deals with words and opinions, mostly through interviews and observations, and is often crucial for exploratory studies to understand deep perspectives that are otherwise impossible to unravel.
Quantitative research, on the other hand, deals with numbers and charts that can be statistically analysed, thereby providing more robust and reliable results that are almost invincible for validatory studies or in understanding patterns and correlations.
However, as researchers and marketers, we are not only exposed to the benefits of either mode of research, but to their limitations as well. While Qualitative research provides admirable depth and richness, it uses summarization and interpretation, the latter being prone to too many points for bias and is over reliant on the credibility of the moderator. Moreover, since this is done with a much smaller sample size, its reliability and representative validity remains perpetually questionable.
Which is why we believe more in the power of Quantitative research!
Done in the right way, its statistical analysis is much more robust and due to the larger sample size, the credibility related to representation is usually beyond question. However, that does not mean that it is devoid of limitations entirely. Due to the traditional use of close ended questions, it is often accused of scratching the surface with defined parameters, thereby failing to provide necessary depth in the insights it generates.
Is there a Perfect solution?
It is pretty evident that the ideal solution lies somewhere between, which is precisely the reason most brands take a mixed approach to research, by combining a qual study with a quant one. The former provides the exploratory depth, while the latter complements with validatory robustness. And this is what led to the conceptualisation of Relevance TAGS® as a methodology; to bring together the best of both worlds. But before we get deeper into this approach, let us jot down some of the typical constraints of the traditional approach to quantitative research.
Preconceived needs and predefined parameters
Halo effect of overwhelming brand perceptions
No brand differentiation and inability to determine true personality
Often captures what researchers believe, not what consumers think
Let us take the example in Exhibit 1 below. To the left is a representation of a typical quantitative questionnaire, laden with ratings, rankings and grid choice questions. To the right is the result from a standard brand attribute related question, asking the respondents to apply predefined statements to four brands in the automotive industry.
As is evident, the blue line representing brand A seems to perform better than the other brands in almost all parameters with the exception of ‘Good Value for Money’. This showcases the commonly encountered ‘halo effect’ where brand A, perceived to be a stronger brand due to its leadership position, seems to be better in almost every parameter, which is rarely the case in reality.
We arrived at the conclusion that this is less an issue with the brands, markets or research design, and more an impediment due to the approach itself, namely that of using close ended questions. That is when we decided to alter the approach and shift to an open ended way of asking questions, leading to our core methodology Relevance TAGS®. Of course, we don’t discard the use of close ended questions. Instead, we agree they are important and necessary for a certain kind of information. But there are also those that are best addressed by open ended questions and an intelligent mix of both open and closed questions, is what we recommend, and what our TAGS® methodology is all about.
Of course, nothing that is worth its salt has ever come easily, and the same applies for responses from open ended questions, which generates an overwhelming magnitude of data. To mitigate this major challenge, Relevance has developed its own analytical system that is able to clean, structure, categorize and analyse this kind of information and make sense out of it. This mammoth task is a combination of human intervention and Artificial Intelligence that progressively cleans and categorises spontaneous data into a semantic dictionary, which, after meticulous statistical analysis, leads to actionable insights.
Here’s a short video explaining the entire process involved:
How is the Relevance approach different?
Let us take the same example of brand attributes. When asked as an open ended question, respondents will be provoked to think harder and their responses will be spontaneous in nature, thereby bringing out what is really in their mind, in terms of brand associations. The resultant attributes for a brand might end up looking like Exhibit 2:
Now we can see how the Brands are really perceived by their consumers and also get to understand how they differ from each other. While Brand A stands out as the ‘Reliable’ brand with ‘Quality’, Brand B is seen as ‘Modern’ and ‘Economical’. Brand C is also perceived to be ‘Reliable’ while it rides on attributes like ‘Technology’ and ‘Ecology’, while Brand D has established itself as a ‘Foreign’ brand with great ‘Design’. By changing the approach from a predefined closed style to an open ended one, we have been able to unravel specific brand images as well as clear differentiations between brands, indicating each brand’s edge over the others.
The same approach can be applied to understand Brand Personalities, or the Emotional profiles of brands, by encouraging consumers to describe the user profiles of the brands they are familiar with. This topic has been explained in more detail in a previous article.
In Exhibit 3, we have showcased the example of Emotional DNAs of certain brands in the skincare category.
As can be seen, the perception of the user of each of these four brands vary significantly, reflecting a crucial element in the brand’s overall image. We have reasons to believe that this emotional perception plays an undeniable role in a brand’s performance and preference.
But Relevance TAGS® does not end with brand images. Like it was mentioned earlier, we use a mix of open and close ended questions, which provides us with a multitude of data and that enables us to do several kinds of crossings and analysis between the different data points. Some of our most popular findings are as follows:
Understanding spontaneously expressed Consumer Needs, in the Consumers’ own words.
Crossing Needs with Brand images to create a Need Fulfilment index, which explains how my brand is fulfilling the key needs of the consumers.
Mapping competitor brands to understand a Positioning Landscape, all derived from spontaneous perceptions expressed by the respondents. This often discloses positioning opportunities that are difficult to find out.
Crossing brand ratings and consideration scores with the brand images, to unravel which attributes impact the brand or its consideration positively and which are detrimental to the brand’s overall performance.
Understanding categories, new and old, and the perceptions related to them, and what triggers their familiarity or consideration.
There are many other analyses that can be done using Relevance TAGS ®, but some of its unique advantages might be best explained through a couple of sample cases.
Case Study – Global Beverage Brand
Brand A is a well known global brand with Thailand being one of its strongest markets. A carbonated flavoured drink that is targeted primarily at teenagers and young children, the brand has been popular since decades. However, with competition coming from not only other carbonated beverages, but also from categories like RTD (ready to drink) Tea, Energy Drink and Flavoured Water, Brand A was found to be falling out of favour with its core target group, the teens. Despite regular campaigns that were well received by the general population, the brand struggled to stop the slide, as teenagers seemed to move away from the brand with time.
There was a need to understand their attitudes and motivations, as well as to study the attitudes of mothers, who were major influencers, to help re establish the brand as the most attractive brand for the young.
Relevance started by analysing the fundamental positioning of Brand A and compared it against its major competitors, including Brand B – a Cola brand and Brand C – a bottled Tea brand.
While Brand B had taken ownership of the critical attribute ‘Refreshing’, Brand C was perceived to be ‘Tasty’, ‘Nice’ and ‘Healthy’, all very promising associations. But Brand A had successfully created its own positioning, by creating its image around ‘Nice’, ‘Fun’, ‘Variety’ and ‘Kids‘, attributes that were expected to resonate well with the young target audience.
And yet, Brand A had the lowest preference among its core target segment of teenagers.
In order to understand what might be the reason behind this, we analysed Brand A’s image among different segments and found that while the mothers associated it with more Rational elements like ‘Affordable’, ‘Strong’, ‘Practical’ and ‘Well known’, teenagers seemed to associate it more with Emotional attributes, like ‘Tasty’, ‘Fun’ and ‘Attractive Image’.
As we dug deeper into the drivers for consideration among these two core segments, we unearthed something very interesting. Unsurprisingly, the mothers considered a brand more when they saw it as ‘Healthy’ and ‘Practical’.
The teenagers, on the other hand, were considering brands they saw as ‘Attractive’ and ‘Appealing’, but when they associated a brand with ‘Kids’, their consideration scores for that brand dropped drastically.
That provided a key insight for Brand A. While Teenagers were considered as ‘Kids’ by everyone else, often in a positive way, they perceived themselves as ‘Young’ and did not identify themselves as kids. And when they associated something with ‘Kids’, in this case Brand A, their consideration went down in an effort to distance themselves from being seen as kids.
This analysis could only be done applying an open ended approach, which helped generate spontaneous responses for us to semantically dissect them, and reveal the subtle nuances. This insight played a pivotal role in reshaping the brand’s communication strategy, as they moved away from an animation based campaign into a more contemporary content.
Case Study – Global Automotive Brand
Let us take another case, this time a global Automotive brand (Brand X) that is the market leader in several markets. Due to its leadership position, the brand had a strong equity but was unable to understand its core positioning attributes and how they stood differentiated from the competitor brands. Traditional research showed consistently that the brand was powerful and ahead of competitors in most aspects, including the three core values the brand had been communicating; ‘Modern’, ‘Design’ and ‘Sporty’. But there was a lack of clarity in terms of what the brand really stood for, and why, despite overwhelming awareness and familiarity, the brand’s consideration saw a sharper decline compared to its competitors.
It was time for Relevance TAGS®!
We started by analysing the Brand’s DNA and found the brand to be associated with many positive attributes, but what was most impressive was the fact that all three core values of the brand; Modern, Design and Sporty, were strongly capitalized by the brand itself. The communication strategy seemed to have worked well, for each of these brand attributes.
Furthermore, our research in multiple markets revealed that the brand image was fairly consistent across multiple markets, having successfully appropriated all the three core values, and within each market it was well differentiated in its positioning, compared to its competitors. Everything seemed to indicate the strong performance of a market leader with little to improve, and yet, when we analysed the Purchase Funnel, it revealed a massive drop between the awareness/familiarity of the brand and its consideration.
So we decided to look beyond the direct data, by crossing multiple data points against each other. As we intersected the Brand DNA results (Open ended) with the Consideration scores from the Purchase Funnel (close ended), we were able to establish the subtle correlation between brand attributes and their impact on Consideration, or simply put, the Consideration Drivers.
This analysis revealed something unexpected. While the top three associations that impacted the Consideration of Brand X were found to be positive attributes, not all of them were working in a positive manner, as can be seen in the exhibit below:
While ‘Attractive Design’ was a Consideration Builder, or something that enhanced the consideration score of the brand, when associated with it, ‘Sporty’ and ‘Young’ were found to be negatively impacting the brand’s consideration and can be termed as Consideration Burdens. In simpler words, when the customer perceived the brand as Sporty and/or Young, their chances of considering it went down.
To summarize this key finding, while attributes like Sporty and Young were positive and helped the brand in its overall image perception, they were neither important needs nor influential traits for its customers, who were instead looking for a safe and reliable car. In fact, the perception that the brand was Sporty and Young was counterproductive to an extent and was eroding its image on other, more critical fronts. A classical example of a well executed communication, delivered to the wrong target audience.
These are just a few examples of how the open ended approach by Relevance TAGS ® can be useful in revealing insights that are otherwise easy to ignore and often, taken for granted.
Take a look at some of the work we have done with our global clients, or connect with us directly to know more about Relevance Tags. We would be delighted to hear from you.
Featured Brands
About the Author:
Bernat is one of the founders of Relevance and is based out of our HQ in Barcelona, Spain.
Rate this Article
(58 votes, average: 4.62 out of 5)
Loading...