Article by Clara Origlia

Doing Sensory research automatically means dealing with Multisensory and Multicultural dimensions.

The Sensory world is an immense and highly articulated area of ​​research. Research can go far beyond what is ‘essential’ or imaginable. From the definition of the physical-perceptive characteristics of a product,  its hedonic features, its functional properties and attributes, descriptors and benefits that characterize it, up to fine-tuning all the elements of the marketing mix. Sensory elements allow researchers to measure (on a cognitive/rational but also on a physical/emotional level) the appeal of single components that characterize a product, a brand, its promises and benefits. They also allow researchers to determine how effectively the product as a whole, as well as its specific components, address the users’ needs and desires; to what extent they express the product/brand’s full potential within a category, meeting specific objectives of the marketing strategy vs competing products and brands. Sensory research reveals the personality, but also the soul of a product or a brand and, most definitely, its potential.

The creation of verbal stimuli, questionnaires, item batteries, descriptors, and evaluations is a particularly delicate activity. Spoken language alone does not always succeed in conveying the depth and the subtleties of human perception. However, the use of a whole range of carefully selected sensory, perceptive, and emotional stimuli can definitely empower language and elicit the expression of precious material, present on an emotional or unconscious level. The use of rich set of stimuli allows researchers to enhance and exploit the multifaceted perceptive-descriptive dimension of ‘human’ language. In a multicultural project, translations shall convey and restore any nuance, enriching and stimulating all the interpretative possibilities, rather than simply guaranteeing understanding and dialogue between users, or facilitating the international outreach of research. This is unfortunately the case of English, which has always been the universal language of marketing and research, often being oversimplified and ‘universalized’.

Holistic approaches, especially in real life, allow a large variety of stimuli to be used in a flexible way, being adapted to the culture, context, characteristics of the consumer, product or idea being researched on. Stimuli can be adapted to the spirit, rhythm and natural logic that develops in an interview or in group work dynamics, thus stimulating insights that cannot be obtained with purely cognitive and rational methods.

The stimulus material shall be prepared ad hoc; it cannot be chosen or created on the basis of personal taste or in a disorganized manner, without a strategy. Stimulus material is not something optional, and should not be managed as an optional extra, a filler, an accessory; nor as an enlivening element of the speech or as a way to make the presentation more involving or visually attractive for the Client. Stimulus material is part and parcel of the research approach, and it should be used as such.

Stimulus material preparation requires sensitivity, expertise and attention. It cannot be randomly delegated, outsourced or created without any brief or coordination. The help of an expert researcher is valuable and could actually allow other researchers  or anyone else on the Client side to use the preparation phase, as a very useful moment of  reflection and teamwork.

Research approaches in a ‘human to human’ or ‘human-centred’ perspective.

The use of holistic, hybrid, multicultural, multidisciplinary, cross-generation approaches can truly enrich the work of professionals in the fields of research and communication, marketing, strategic consultancy, and innovation. Research and insights are brought back into an authentic, ‘human to human’ perspective of real life.

Sensory Analysis, Semiotics, Sensory Semiotics, Design Thinking, Ethnography, Storytelling, and Co-creation allow the best use of the uniquely and exquisitely human ability to establish, manage and describe complex sensory interweaving; to express evaluations, emotions and experiences in an analogical or metaphorical way. This can be achieved by overcoming cognitive and rational barriers and limits, making the most of the expressive potential of other “languages”, both verbal and non-verbal, while describing an experience. ‘Experience’ does not only refer to what can be sensed, felt, physically or emotionally experienced; it also includes what can be imagined, intuited, prefigured, projected, foretasted…. This level of processing requires the awareness of what an experience is, can, or could be. Such an awareness, at least for now, is only human.

Clara Origlia, Independent Research Consultant , Insight Expert and Coach, and ICG member, is a very experienced, trilingual qualitative researcher, moderator and consumer insights expert.

linkedin.com/in/claraoriglia

https://theicg.co.uk/upt_user/user-865/

ICG member Tom Woodnutt is hosting an ICG Webinar for us soon on using electronic whiteboards.  In this recent blog Tom highlights some really useful applications of virtual whiteboards.

“When I studied psychology at the turn of the century, they said 7 was the average number of things that our short term memory can handle (at least I think it was 7?).

Today we outsource much of what we need to remember to devices, so I’m not sure this still holds true! In any case, as qualitative researchers what we can remember from the conversations we have is critical to the quality of output. Considering memory is fallible, shouldn’t we use technology to enhance our ability to recall the detail?

Virtual whiteboards like Miro and Mural give qualitative researcher bionic memory! You can zoom in and out and organise lots of information on them. Virtual whiteboards help us to gather more detail, collaborate more efficiently with others on analysis, and paint more rounded pictures of participants as people (not just soundbites). Moreover, using them can accelerate analysis and report writing (because the story is quicker to develop and substantiate).

In fairness to us qualitative researchers, we have honed our cognition to cope with the challenge of remembering what we need. We have learned to ignore the dross and retain what is strategically relevant, intellectually curious and emotionally salient. So we can write a good report based on recall alone.  But having used virtual whiteboards like Mural for analysis, I believe we can do an even better job with them – especially on online qual projects.

The challenges facing qualitative analysis today

1) Not enough time for transcripts

Research briefs are increasingly agile, with shorter timelines. It is harder for qual researchers to have time to wait for professional transcripts.  Many researchers end up relying on recall and missing details.  

2) Clients need more detail and nuance

Despite having less time, clients need more detail – especially for innovation and experience design projects! This challenge is magnified in asynchronous online qual (which tends to generate more input from participants) and global qualitative studies with larger sample sizes.

3) Participants are reduced to soundbites rather than real people

It is hard to connect everything a participant said early on in a discussion (e.g. when exploring the context around a subject) with their feedback to concepts later in a discussion. This is particularly the case in online qual projects because I think it’s harder to remember what people say when they tell us remotely (as we’re not so emotionally connected as when we speak in-person). This means participants’ utterances can be reduced to isolated soundbites.

3) Analysis is too linear and isolated

Too often I believe that researchers do analysis in isolation and then come back with a perspective that has not benefited enough from other stakeholders (such as the creative, design or innovation agency or client). This means that findings are restricted by the limitations of the researchers’ brains and knowledge base, rather than being stretched by other stakeholders expertise (which often results in more useful insights).

How virtual whiteboards can help

Here are 10 benefits from using virtual whiteboards for analysis. . .

1. Never forget what was said: Cut and paste insightful quotes from discussions, transcripts or asynchronous online qual platforms into a bespoke framework means nothing important is forgotten. Organise it under themes (that follow the discussion guide or analysis framework).
2. Understand participants as people: Create a row for each participant, so you can easily cross reference their answers to earlier contextual questions with their reactions to subsequent questions and stimulus. This makes it easier to interpret why they said what they said.
3. Don’t lose your ideas: Too often we have useful ideas that fall by the wayside and get lost as we moderate or get distracted. Whenever you make an observation or think of a potential recommendation you can keep hold of it on the virtual whiteboard, with a unique virtual post-it (rather than allowing it to fall away into your subconscious or note pad!).
4. See useful patterns emerge more easily: Once you have all feedback summarised visually with themes and meta-themes neatly laid out, patterns in the data will emerge more easily than if the information were trapped in your (and others’) heads
5. Get more inspiration from the agency or client stakeholders: When more of the detail in analysis is laid out on a whiteboard it’s easier to invite clients and agency partners into the analysis process. This means you can learn from their perspective and have more data-led discussions during analysis (as you can quickly share examples of what was said).
6. React faster to client requests: If your analysis is neatly organised in a virtual whiteboard you can respond more effectively to follow up questions from clients. Colour coded virtual post-its, ‘tagging’ and ‘search’ functions make it even easier to do follow-up analysis if requested (compared to going back into the data).
7. Let clients pay for your thinking more than the format of your output: Explore the idea of sharing a whiteboard instead of a traditional report. You can still put in clear recommendations and summary points onto it. But it has the added benefit of containing more detail. This means clients are paying for your analysis and interpretation rather than the time it takes to make PowerPoint look pretty!
8. Share thoughts with fewer meetings and emails: You can @mention people on whiteboards and ask them to elaborate and supplement it where needed. This means less meetings and emails and more efficient collaboration.
9. Let the work live beyond the project more easily: Since the detail of participants’ feedback is contained, tagged and neatly organised, you or your client can mine it for new insights in the future more easily.
10. Tune feedback into agile workflows: This type of reporting lends itself to agile workflows as agencies can see analysis as it is uploaded in real-time – rather than having to wait for the final report. If managed carefully, this means they can have a head-start on prototyping and iterating designs.

Although these guidelines can be applied to the analysis of any type of qualitative research, I think it’s most useful for asynchronous online qual (that is largely text based and running over a few days) – as it generates a lot more detail than the equivalent number of people in real time focus groups. It gives you instant transcripts after each day of the study. I’m impressed by how much easier it is to do collaborative analysis, find the story, write reports, substantiate what you want when you have analysis neatly organised in virtual whiteboards.”

You can read Tom’s regular blogs here, including Tom’s write up defining best practice guidelines for hiring freelance consultants (an ICG initiative) here.

Four things that may take you by surprise if you decide to run research in Romania:

Don’t let yourself be fooled by geography.

While Romania is usually considered part of the Balkans, we speak Romanian (which, by the way, is also the 2^nd most spoken language in Microsoft offices around the world!), a Romance language, and we claim a Roman heritage.  This means part of the Romanian spirit is considered to be Latin – for example, we tend to be quite emotional and exaggerate both enthusiasm and disappointment.

Traditionally, Romania is split into 3 main geographic regions that are supposed to differ in historic and cultural background: Transylvania, Moldova and Muntenia.  Depending on the category you are researching, you may discover however that in big cities across the country you will encounter the same more progressive attitudes, while in smaller cities and rural areas (we still have one of the largest rural societies in Europe), irrespective of the geographic region, more conservative and traditionalistic.  The differences between the major regions tend to become more and more about the economy (with Moldova being the poorest), which reflects into everything else.  Of course, there are also finer differences, this is why when planning research design, you should enlist the help of a local expert (just like with any kind of international research).

Bucharest is huge compared to the other big cities – 2.5 million inhabitants (vs. ~400K for the next biggest city – Lasi), which means it is the main market for most advertisers and many times, in qual, just running some research in Bucharest is reassuring enough.

Romanian Internet is FAST

Romania is actually 5^th (!!!) in a worldwide top of countries with the fastest broadband download rates (for reference, UK is 35^th: https://www.cable.co.uk/broadband/speed/worldwide-speed-league/).  This means that if you are planning to run a mobile ethnography research heavy in evidence, you don’t have to worry about respondents being able to upload videos and larger files (it has always been refreshing news to the platform providers I had worked with).

You must worry, however about the general population being digitally illiterate (remember, 46% of Romania is still rural).  So, choose your method wisely depending on demographic (just like anywhere, younger, more educated, urban targets are more computer literate), and keep the digital tools as simple and intuitive as possible.

Yet, according to ESOMAR, almost 30% of qual and quant research spend in Romania is represented by online methods while – for reference, in UK it is 32%.  So … do what you would do in UK … or, not? (Have I mentioned already about asking a local expert?)

If your brief asks for 6 respondents, you will get 12

This is best explained by turning it on its head: how I was taken by surprise, with my first project in the UK (a very tightly scheduled one, with an international team flying from all over the world).  I learnt then, halfway through the recruitment stage, that me asking for 6 in-home visits meant 6 people had been quoted for (and recruited), no over-quota/ extra-recruitments having been factored in.

In Romania, the recruitment agency would have automatically included stand-bys in the price for the 6 in-homes (50-100% over-quota, depending on agency and target) – the briefs we write here mention only the final number of respondents expected to show up, and it is up to the recruitment agency ensure they do (and include the appropriate number of over-recruits).

The research market is a market of agencies, not of freelancers.

These agencies have everything in-house (fieldwork, facility, qual, quant services) and the consequence of that the industry lacks in service providers: very few fieldwork only providers (not including here major online panels providers who operate a global business from Romania), no independent focus group facilities.  So, if you need only a focus group facility, you will most likely have to rent from one of the full-service agencies (yes, focus groups typically run in dedicated facilities in Bucharest and in hotel apartments outside Bucharest).  However, if you should decide to work via one of the (few) freelancers, they have their networks set up, and can help with all the referrals a project might need.

Oana Rengle is one of the few freelance qualitative research expert based in Bucharest, Romania.