Editor's note: Judith Langer is president of Langer Associates, New York city, and a member of the Qualitative Research Consultants Association (QRCA) Board of Directors. This article is adapted from a speech given in July as part of the Advertising Research Foundation's Key Issues Workshop.
Sometimes the best way to get the big picture is to start by looking small - and then to keep adding the small pieces together. While focus groups are gaining popularity in political polling, most of the "big picture" research of American society by marketers and candidates is large-scale: large samples with broad-ranging questions on respondents' opinions on the big issues of the day.
In qualitative research, we start the opposite way to build to the big picture. Our research gives us a close-up view of Americans, across much of the class spectrum in markets throughout the country. In an individual focus group or depth interview study we typically talk with anywhere from 20-120 people, a sample which is, as we caution clients, intentionally small and not necessarily representative. The scope of these studies, too, can often be purposely small, focused on highly specific issues - the image communicated by four different packaging graphics, why people buy frozen corn. Many of our questions concern how people live their everyday lives, what they serve for dinner, where they shop, how they spend their spare time. Sometimes there are "big" questions about the issues in people's lives, their goals, hopes and fears.
Whether or not the question explicitly asked is "big" or "small, " through, in the course of the interviews we find out what's really going on: how people feel about their jobs or, today, the lack of jobs; what family life is really like stripped away from the rhetoric; what people feel and do about their homes, their bodies, their money; what they feel they should and shouldn't do. Studies may look unrelated on paper--toothpaste, cat food, computers, hair spray, stocks and bonds--but the underlying patterns of thinking and buying are not. In the course of studying different product categories, we may hear women 1824 or teenagers or people 60-75 years old over and over. Issues like the role of price come up again and again. The small-scale studies of a few dozen people also add up over the year and over the years.
The details of ordinary everyday activities reveal what people truly believe, what they truly care about, how they really live - not just what their official socially respectable opinions are. The pieces add up to a larger view of the American consumer.
For the first time, over 40 qualitative researchers have shared their insights about the current state of the consumer. The Qualitative Research Consultants Association (QRCA), a group of independent qualitative researchers recently conducted its first Trends Identification Project. The question posed to members was whether or not the so-called 90s consumer is indeed different from the 80s consumer. "Consumer" was used broadly to include business customers, voters and other people our members have interviewed. A questionnaire with open-ended questions and even two closed-end questions was sent to 363 members; 39 responded, some at length. Additionally, a focus group was done by phone with five members of the QRCA Board, one of whom had sent in a questionnaire. (A list of the researchers who participated can be found at the end of the article.) Their overview of today's consumer is based on several hundred focus groups in the last year alone, no less those in the years and decades preceding it.
Yes, indeed, real differences exist between the present and the last decade, the now infamous 80s, according to most of the researchers. Nearly a third of the researchers see this as a sharply significant change in direction, while almost half see a more moderate shift. A few believe there has been little or no change. 
A return to basic values to a large extent defines the early 1990s. Consumers are more concerned with taking care of themselves, their happiness and peace of mind rather than aiming for the top. Survival and security are the goals more than wild success. The 90s represent the "end of 'money euphoria' and 'have it all"' thinking, Beth Hardwick wrote. "The frightening state of the [economic] environment amplifies [consumer] desires to cling to something stable and honest," Mary Rubin stated, adding an important point for marketers: "Consumers are looking for meaning in consumption." Several researchers noted a trend away from buying image and status items.
Asked a direct question about whether consumers today are less materialistic and more idealistic than were, two-thirds of the researchers agrees this shift is occurring. Again, though, most of these researchers see a moderate rather than a dramatic shift. 
Here's an instance, though, where qualitative researchers asked what the question really means: what is materialism? Perhaps, some researchers observed, the type of materialism has simply changed. Money is very much on people's minds; in fact, the very scarcity of money has made it more a concern for many people. The difference between the two decades was summed up by Gina Thorne: in the 80s people wanted to make it big, now they just want to make it. People today, she explained, are "more concerned about money, less concerned about 'having it all.' Needs are more basic - less luxury, less concern with the trendy [and] less faith in their ability to fulfill the American dream...Many are less materialistic out of necessity rather than from choice." Meredith Ware wrote, "perhaps the nature of what they want has changed. The family has become very important, but this may lead to a new type of materialism, [with] interest in children's toys, clothes, etc., replac[ing] interest in personal acquisition." One point on which researchers seemed to agree is that the status and glitz image buying of the 80s has pretty much disappeared, at least for now.
Whether or not people are more idealistic today was debated by the researchers. Rising environmentalism, however, was cited by a number of researchers as a major trend. As government regulations and marketers' efforts increase, recycling has become more convenient, a move many consumers welcome. More companies, some researchers advised, should be working to reduce their packaging. Outside their concern for ecology, consumers were seen by some researchers as being, to quote James Sears, "more inward looking [with] focus on home, self, child or children and little else." Other researchers, though, believe that there is more concern today with helping people beyond one's immediate family, including people of different races and classes. Consumers care more about "what a company stands for socially," Paul Rosenberg noted; several other researchers agreed.
Another key trend identified by many of the researchers is value shopping. Price is, without question, a dominant concern for today's shoppers. Repeatedly, however, the researchers cautioned that it is a mistake to think they only want low price. Instead, they are looking for the best deal, what Mona Doyle called "the best value within the price range." " 'Rational value' is the theme for the 90s," Timm Sweeney wrote; consumers aren't looking for the cheapest price--they want "service, trust and reliability" as well. Susan Saurage-Thibodeaux, stating that consumers' concern about price "confuses marketers," explained that the "cost of an item now includes all of the time it takes to look for and find it." In addition to price, consumers consider the "quality of contents, ease of preparation, set-up [and] delivery." These are, then, more sophisticated, complex evaluations than ones based on low price alone.
The role of price also varies by product category, further confusing the picture. If consumers think of a product as a commodity, price is a very important deciding factor, but if they believe there are real differences, price may not be quite so significant. One person's commodity, though, is another's premium category.
For marketers, this seems to mean that, more than ever, there is a need to understand how consumers view their category, their brand. Generalizations about consumers may be meaningless.
Modified brand loyalty is another marketing reality of the 90s. Brand names still have significance for consumers in many categories, but they are often not the overriding consideration they once were. In a package goods study, Saurage-Thibodeaux found that consumers' brand loyalty was "fierce, except when another product was on sale. The primary brand was interspersed with other sale brands." Joe Grieco, observed that "there still remains a feeling of loyalty...That feeling doesn't always translate to behavior, but it does have a role."
Mona Doyle states that consumers "are loyal whenever they see a reason for being loyal. Many of the reasons have eroded." In a sense, marketers themselves have been responsible for the decline in loyalty. The rise in parity or me-too products was mentioned by several researchers as a factor in changed buying patterns.
Particularly intriguing is the rise in consumer skepticism, which several researchers observed. Marketing savvy is increasingly common, especially among baby boomers and busters who know the language, see the games behind the strategies and ads. Consumers, Pamela Rogers said, are "alert to any attempts to pull the wool over their eyes or to try and control them. Hence, the popularity of commercials which make fun of themselves." This sophistication was true in the 80s, but it has grown.
What is new is the added element of "disillusionment," "distrust" and "disenchantment," not only with some marketers, but also with government, politics (as is clear this election year), and even religion. Warren Goldman described the current consumer attitude as, "Prove it to me - show me first before I act." Dealing with a more savvy consumer will be a challenge for marketers as the demand for greater honesty intensifies.
The other trend noted by several researchers should be mentioned briefly - increased involvement with outdoor activities including sports, walking, hiking. Importantly, a variety of motivations underlie this trend, which suggests that it may become a long- term one. Researchers mentioned, among other reasons, interest in nature and the environment; concern with health, physical attractiveness; desire for "quality time" with family; and, in some cases, a need for what Mary Rubin called "reasonably affordable" leisure. The stay-at-home trend may still be in force as more baby boomers have children and many people are saving money, but it would be a mistake to think of consumers today as just retreating to their cocoons.
So, how do the small pieces add up for the big picture of consumer trends in the early 90s? "Recessionary realities," a phrase by Myril Axelrod, sums up the current mood and modes of spending: more down-to-earth than the glitzy 80s, with more tempered and questioning loyalties, more determined seeking of real value, a sharper eye for untruths. Realism along with, at times, a genuine interest in the world and the planet beyond self and family. And, lastly, a desire for the outside world in both a figurative and literal sense.