Editor’s note: Dana Blackwell is co-founder and executive vice-president of qualitative research for PlayLab Research, a division of the Creative Group, Inc., that specializes in children marketing research. She has 10 years of marketing and advertising research experience encompassing consumer packaged foods and beverages, candy/gum, snacks, fast food, household goods, toys/games, personal health and beauty aids, broadcasting and advertising. Brett Blackwell is co-founder and president of the Creative Group, Inc. Blackwell has 20 years of marketing, planning and research experience with General Mills, Warner-Lambert and Dow Corning.

Art Linkletter proved long ago that children are open and honest, even to the point of humorous embarrassment. They appear to reflect what they hear and see very forthrightly.

Indeed, everyone has probably heard the story of the elementary school teacher who asked a child in her class to spell relief and received RO-L-A-I-D-S as the answer.

However, child research is serious if not difficult business. This may confound the uninitiated individual who thinks of the child as a sort of small sized, underdeveloped and simplistic adult human being. Those persons who have been initiated into the world of qualitative children research are wise to the realities present, having found that in many ways children are a more complex population segment, that communicating with children to uncover in-depth insight and meaningful information is more difficult than communicating with adults, and that analyzing the information obtained can also involve complexities not present in adult marketing research.

The use of qualitative research with children is recommended as one of the better and more effective methodological tools of inquiry. Appropriately designed and conducted, qualitative research communicates with the child in his or her language, on his or her level, providing the unique opportunity of understanding the child consumer in his or her own terms. The following review is intended to provide a checklist of concerns to be aware of and overcome when providing "appropriately designed and conducted" children qualitative marketing research.

Recruiting participants

The first area of concern generally encountered in children research is in recruiting, screening and qualifying potential participants. Basically stated, it is difficult to recruit representative children who feel comfortable enough together to express their opinions and express them independent of the influence of peer respondents. Years of fielding children research projects have suggested that the following recruiting precautions be taken to minimize potential problems:

1. Recruit male and female children for separate groups, as mixing sexes often leads to inhibition and/or game playing.

2. Recruit children of similar age and grade levels, and don't recruit children younger than six years of age for standard-sized focus groups, as younger children may have difficulty expressing themselves in a larger group situation. As a rule, recruit by grade level rather than by chronological age to ensure equality of thought and expression.

3. When feasible, recruit children for discussion groups to contain only two grade levels, as wider disparity often inhibits the younger respondent(s) who may naturally defer to the older aged, higher grade child.

4. Recruit children who are articulate and can express themselves in a group situation. It may be feasible to recruit children in pairs by recruiting one child and then recruiting a qualified friend, for this overcomes feelings of isolation in the group makeup. (However, this may encourage "side talking" when close friends are seated together).

5. Schedule research for hours/days when children, particularly younger children, will not be too tired and exhausted to actively participate in the group process. (For the child researcher, this, unfortunately, may mean moderating on Saturdays and Sundays).

Creating proper atmosphere

The second area of concern is the qualitative research environment which, without experience and care, can become a substitute classroom with inherent schoolroom taboos and expectations which may inhibit the child respondent. Here again, training and experience suggest certain procedural precautions that will diminish this "schoolroom syndrome."

1. Create a friendly, positive twoway atmosphere. Have the moderator informally introduce herself/himself and conduct "small-talk" while children are waiting in the lobby;

Provide refreshments (in the lobby) that are age appropriate;

Where possible, use a bright, cheerful room. A conference setting is alright and sometimes preferred (to a living room setting) if the chairs are high enough and the table not too big for the number of children participating.

2. Tell children that the group is not like a class, that there are no wrong answers, that disagreement and different opinions are OK, and that their individual participation in terms of "speaking up" is very important. Most important, the moderator must be trained and experienced in providing positive behavior reinforcement for serious (not silly) communications.

3. As time permits, open the research discussion with a topic that is of interest and is non-threatening to participating children. Sometimes an initial planned exercise in creative thinking and opinion stating can result in enhanced objectivity for subsequent research discussions.

Selecting the technique

There are a number of qualitative techniques which have been developed and proven effective in accomplishing marketing research with children. While some of these techniques are also utilized in conducting adult qualitative research, their implication and application may vary for children use. These techniques are:

  • Ideation sessions
  • In-depth interviews
  • Friendship triads
  • Mini-groups
  • Focus groups; standard groups and peer leader groups.
  • Stacked™ groups.

Ideation sessions: These are informal, creative-thinking, brainstorming sessions conducted in a casual, relaxed environment with select, screened children who are considered to be innovators and trendsetters in lifestyle, language, leisure and fashion factors by peers and/or adults. (For research efficacy, as well as cost and timing considerations, it is recommended that these innovative children be pre-recruited and personally screened for inclusion into an on-going panel for longitudinal tracking and ideation use).

These highly interactive sessions will last from 3-31/2 hours and interface six-seven select children with four-five select adults. The participating adults will be provided by both client and supplier and encompass work functions/areas such as research moderator, co-moderator, advanced research, research and development and brand planning/management. Creative thinking exercises and brainstorming techniques are utilized as planned procedures to facilitate innovative thinking and discussion.

In-depth interviews: Commonly referred to as "one-on-ones," these unstructured, in-depth personal interviews may range from 15-30 minutes in length, depending upon the age of the children being interviewed, and should be conducted/moderated by an experienced research professional who will be providing the research analysis and report preparation. By virtue of the professional time involved, in-depth interviews are lengthy, fatiguing (i.e., moderator "wear-out"), and not inexpensive, but they also can provide valuable individual, independent, in-depth insight and understanding not influenced by the interaction dynamics of the group discussion process.

Friendship triads: Interviewing three children at a time produces a hybrid discussion that may last 15-45 minutes, somewhat in between multiple in-depth interviews and a mini-group discussion session. If the triad is a friendship triad, there usually is some sort of mutual encouragement to talk and participate in a familiar, close knit environment that lacks the uncomfortableness of a larger group structure. Friendship triads are those involving three playmates of the same or similar age and sex and both their strength and limitation involve the already?established, inherent group communication patterns, structure and possible bias. However, traids remain a popular technique for providing moderator contact with and control of younger children respondents. Indeed, the use of triads allows the professional moderator to research four- and five- year-old children and permits moderator demonstration and controlled respondent handling of fragile and/or expensive product prototypes and/or packaging.

Mini-groups: Mini-groups differ from standard focus groups simply by being shorter in length (viz., from 30-60+ minutes vs. 11/2-2 hours) and involving fewer participants viz., four-six vs. eight-10 children. Mini-groups are excellent for younger-aged children, five-seven years of age, because they allow for in-depth probing of individual discussants within a shorter, less tiring time frame.

As a rule, the younger the age of the children participants, the smaller the size and the shorter the length of the mini-group. Mini?friendship groups permit the recruitment of friends and may involve from two-three pairs of playmate participants.

Mini-groups are extensively utilized in children marketing research, especially for preliminary concept and/or prototype research involving targeted younger children viz., five-six years and/or an initial broader age range of children e.g., five-10 years. While the reduced number of participants and limited time frame appear to be limitations of a mini-group, they actually provide a number of unique opportunities. Mini-focus group sessions can be conducted more quickly and at less expense than standard children focus groups, thus providing a greater number of different profiles or segments within the scope of a research study. Where critical for research and scheduling purposes, a professional moderator can facilitate three or four mini-groups on a weekday after school, compared to just two or three standard focus groups.

Most important is that the mini-group provides a more comfortable and less inhibiting environment that allows for more in- depth and/or more spontaneous responses, particularly from younger children that may become lost in larger group situations. As with triads, mini-groups are excellent for allowing children personal product contact, providing controlled hands-on experience with prototypes such as toys and games.

Focus groups: Focus groups are extensively used in qualitative marketing research conducted among children, youths, teenagers and young adults. These guided but unstructured discussions are effectively utilized to develop in-depth insight and understanding of children's personal opinions, attitudes, perceptions and preferences.

Standard groups: Standard children focus group research involves having a qualified, trained and experienced research person professionally moderate and analyze a focused group discussion session with representative but articulate children participants/discussants recruited and prescreened on the basis of a predetermined number of qualification attributes and/or specification criteria. A standard child focus group will involve eight-10 participants and take from 11/2-2 hours to complete. In deference to adult focus groups, fewer respondents, viz., eight children, and a shorter discussion duration, viz., 11/2 hours, are preferred.

Peer leader groups: Peer focus groups encompass a unique focus group technique that was developed in response and as a solution to ineffective focus groups conducted among "representative" children. The peer leader group is comprised of peer group leaders, those children who distinguish themselves among other children by virtue of one or more factors that would include social development, verbal acuity, motor skills, physical appearance, and usually, but not always, higher intelligence (e.g., a gym shoe concept would target sports leaders, but may also include fashion leaders).

These peer leader children are best identified for recruitment screening and qualification by adults who are actively involved with children, such as teachers, coaches, club leaders, as well as by parents and children themselves. The key recruitment process is a three- or four- step procedure involving field identification, qualification and recruitment, followed by optional professional personal screening of potential participants (e.g., particularly for possible inclusion into an on? going focus group pool or panel).

Peer leader group recruitment pre-empts conducting qualitative research with quiet, shy children who may be too nervous or uncomfortable to give their own opinions and it generally pre-empts individual hyperactivity and trouble-making behavior. Most importantly, it reduces the impact that children have upon each other, minimizing the "jumping on the bandwagon" effect that can result from the influence of group leaders upon group followers.

The benefits of this more difficult and expensive recruitment procedure are inherent in the personal characteristics of peer group leaders. These are:

  • They understand and cooperate better
  • They are generally brighter and more aware
  • They are more confident and independent in their thinking. (They may or may not be more creative and innovative).
  • They are typically more descriptive of new ideas and trends.

As such, peer group leaders tend to better understand and empathize with the goals of a group, and because of this, they tend to be more cooperative in working toward group goals. They are generally brighter and more creative than other children. They are generally more aware of the world around them, including the preferences and prejudices of their peers.

More importantly, they are able to reflect more productively on questions posed to them. They tend to be independent thinkers who express how they individually feel and are not "swayed" to follow the crowd. They generally are more confident and competent than their peers which allows them to better express their individual thoughts on any given topic matter.

Stacked™ groups: This unique focus group concept originated from the realization that children's products are often bought or not bought in response to a joint purchasing decision, a realization that children and parents have an interdependent effect upon many purchasing decisions. The Stacked focus group is utilized to uncover accurate, objective information where a split specification/purchase decision may exist between two persons, such as between a child and his/her parent (or between a wife and husband).

This research technique is based upon the rationale that a great many decisions to purchase certain products and services results from children and parent interaction regarding products/ services they either are aware of, have experience with, and/or have seen/ heard advertised on television, radio or in print.

Stacked groups are focus groups which include the participation of children and their parents, usually mothers. This innovative focus group technique was borrowed from psychology and group therapy techniques. For example, in a Stacked child/mother group, the child sits around a table and the mother sits directly behind but does not speak to, touch, or influence her child. The specially-trained moderator leads a discussion with the children for 45-90 minutes, after which they leave (i.e., return to the lobby) and the group session is continued with the mothers for another 30-45 minutes. At the end of the two discussion sessions, the original children discussants are invited back into the focus group room to develop some final interactive dialogue between and consensus thinking from both children and mothers.

In the Stacked focus group, the first discussion session (with children) is used to probe the opinions, perceptions and preferences of the children discussants. The second discussion session (with mothers) is used to obtain commentary and response to the children's comments and to gain further insight into and to add to the information provided by the initial children discussants.

The value of the Stacked group technique stems from the ability to gain insight from the child and the parent and the ability to gain interactive insight as well. In other words, each child and parent not only gives his or her opinions of the product, but also gives his reactions to the other's responses (more so for the parent than the child).

As such, one Stacked child/parent group is better than one standard child group and is even better than one child group and one parent group, for it creates three group opportunities in one session. By combining the interactive responses of children and parents into one group, this group technique not only produces more reliable research but also provides significant time and cost savings.

Moderating effectively

For the qualitative researcher, working effectively with children requires extensive training and experience, as well as a continuing presence in the children marketing research marketplace. Because children are not adults, they must be communicated with and treated differently to produce valid research results. Therefore, a number of children qualitative research axioms must be accomplished in the process of moderating children focus groups:

1. The moderator must speak the language of children.

2. The moderator should prepare for the sessions by developing discussion questions and stimuli which are age/ grade and sex appropriate.

3. The moderator must understand and be able to work with group dynamics as they uniquely operate among children.

4. The moderator must have an understanding of the psychological/social / intellectual / developmental stages of children, and;

5. The moderator must know how to provide positive behavior reinforcement and control children without seeming to do so.

Analyzing results

Analysis and interpretation of children research findings is perhaps the most intriguing and complex problem of all. It is caused by the dynamics of child development and its impact on the information generated during the research process and it demands certain skills of the researcher that designs, conducts, and analyzes qualitative research with children. Three of these are:

1. In addition to having firm understanding of marketing and research concepts and principles, the researcher must bring to the analysis a firm understanding of the psychological/social/intellectual stages of child development.

2. In order to properly analyze and interpret the qualitative research information obtained, the researcher should fully understand (and be experienced with) group dynamics as they occur within children focus groups.

3. Children research experience, per se, in terms of the constant and cumulative conduct of children qualitative research, provides a depth of continual and changing knowledge that allows for accurate analysis and proper interpretation of research findings with the dynamic children marketplace(s).