Qualitative Market Research – Brief Definition & Explanation

What is Qualitative Market Research

Qualitative Market Research (aka Qual research) is designed to help companies explore and understand people, markets & brands and focuses on understanding and meaning rather than numbers. It tends to be small scale, using both verbal and non-verbal discovery methods. It typically involves numerous data collection approaches including face to face interviews, online qualitative interviewing and observation.

Qualitative methods are best used for understanding underlying reasons, opinions and motivations – it is ideally suited to new product development (co-creation) or in the early creative development stages of the marketing process. In particular, it is used in developing advertising, packaging, brand and concept development and is often conducted as a precursor to quantitative research methods.

The most popular techniques include; Focus Groups, Depth Interviews (Individual, Pairs & Triads), observation, and ethnographic research also fit into the umbrella of qual research (e.g. observation, video, diaries, larder audits, eye-tracking and other neuromarketing research approaches) and is often supported with semiotics and learnings from psychology and behavioural economics. Qualitative research is by its nature, small-scale in terms of sample size or number of observations. It also tends to be exploratory and uses unstructured interviewing guides (rather than rigid questionnaires), which are responsive to context and may evolve throughout the project.

Click on the following link for more information about Vision One’s qualitative research company services. If you would like more information, we would recommend visiting the Association of Qualitative Research or Wikipedia for more information, or feel free to give us a call.