Editor's note: Tim Huberty is advertising research manager with Minneapolisbased Fallon McElligott advertising agency.
A few years ago, this agency did an advertisement for a local marketing research company. The ad asked a very simple question: "Are you spending too much money on research to find out that you're spending too much money on research?" The question was a good one that becomes more relevant with each passing day.
Even those people who believe they are not spending too much money on research are often not getting full value for their research dollars. Marketing researchers often spend thousands and thousands of dollars to dredge up answers to all sorts of problems plaguing their businesses. Ironically, for just a few dollars more, they could add a "third dimension" to their numbers. By tacking on a few well-placed open-ended questions, the value of their information could grow significantly.
Marketing researchers are trained to study numbers. Academic research courses often focus too heavily upon sample sizes and statistical significance, ignoring common sense consumer responses. Rather than building grid upon grid, chart upon chart, training field people to follow up with a well placed, "Why do you say that?" can often make the difference between good research and great research.
Furthermore, without exception, we have found that the research audiences, be they clients or creatives, relate more easily to words and sentences, rather than cold, unfeeling numbers. Verbatims have personality; they capture the essence of the human soul. Unfortunately, research people hide behind safe numbers while research audiences crave to hear from real people using real words to describe real reactions to real products.
In this article, I will share how verbatims have helped increase the value of marketing research dollars for both Fallon McElligott and our clients. We have found that asking open ended questions and carefully probing for consumers insights has helped us in virtually every type of research we do, including focus groups, telephone studies and personal interviews.
Focus groups
Reporting the results of focus groups is often difficult, especially to those who did not personally observe the groups. Usually, the presenter gets up, and with the aid of a few bullet points, attempts to convey what took place during the group sessions. Simultaneously, he or she attempts to valiantly express how various participants were trying to express themselves.
A few years ago, quite accidentally, this focus group moderator decided that he was fed up with listening to focus group tapes. Out of desperation, I began hiring a typist to transcribe the tapes.
With these transcribed tapes, I soon discovered that I had a ready source of "footnotes" when preparing my presentation and final report. More importantly, when presenting the results, I found that clients could much more readily relate to the actual words participants were uttering.
A few case studies: I was moderating groups for a client of one of the agency's subsidiaries, McCool and Company. The client, DataCard Corporation, is the largest manufacturer of plastic cards and related systems in the world. A series of groups were conducted in two markets among DataCard's customers and non-customers. The product managers knew what their customers and non-customers were saying, but it took the impact of verbatim comments during a focus group presentation to drive home the differences between perception and reality to the salespeople sitting comfortably in the presentation:
"The manufacturer of your card needs to be in tune with the graphics standards of every network that he's required to put embossing work on. Some vendors don't have the camera ready or the standards of what we need to put on the back."
Another example in which we used verbatims to forcefully communicate focus group findings was for our own client, the Aveda Corporation. Once again, the people "behind the lines" did not have the benefit of personally observing every group. Therefore, hearing the results "straight from the horse's mouths" (in the horses' own words) proved to be much more helpful-and enlightening for developing long range marketing plans. Again, the key is in allowing consumers to express themselves in their own words:
"If you take care of your carpeting and you clean it every year, it's not going to wear out in 10 years. It's going to last 20. The same thing happens to your skin. And in 20 years, if you clean your carpet every year it's still going to look better than your mother's did in 10 if she never cleaned it. It's the same thing with your skin. It's just taking care of what you've got and doing the most with what you have."
Telephone studies
In this day of computer-assisted interviewing, many researchers have completely forgotten the value of a well placed probe after one of the countless rating statements which make up too many telephone interviews. Writers of telephone studies often times think that unless an answer can be given in a one-word syllable, it's not worth asking. However, we have found that the learning starts when probing for the why after consumers tell us the what.
Using verbatims certainly works when conducting tracking studies. A few years ago, we were conducting periodic tracking for Penn Racquet Sports. For this study, we had always asked the typical tracking questions-brand awareness, brand usage, advertising awareness, etc. However, one wise account person suggested that we go beyond asking simple advertising awareness, and probe for what respondents remembered specifically about the ads. At the same time, interviewers were instructed not to be satisfied with simple answers. They were told to tap into the emotions behind the answers. Indeed, as the following verbatim suggests, the Penn tennis ball advertising was working-at a wider range than we had initially suspected.
"Their ads show the balls bouncing to the same height. The conditioning and the quality control make an excellent ball. They are a lively and very durable tennis ball. They last a long time."
This past fall, we began running a new advertising campaign aimed at buyers and planners for one of our media clients. As with most of the agency's advertising campaigns, we knew that we were going to conduct a benchmark wave before the campaign began. However, rather than simply collect awareness levels, we decided to add a few probes at the end of the "typical" tracking interview. In this case, instead of simply asking media buyers and planners how likely they would be to recommend the publication to their clients, we also decided to ask them why they would (or would not) recommend the publication. This "benchmark" tracking data became immediately usable, letting our client to know the current perceived strengths and weaknesses of the publication:
"I'm very likely to recommend it. It contains independent articles and is very well written. Its audience is different from other publications. It certainly has a place for my financial and credit card needs which is the area I would certainly use them."
"I'm very unlikely to recommend it. I'm not just familiar with the magazine. I haven't been exposed to it. No one's ever tried to sell me on it and I don't know if I've even purchased one."
Personal interviews
At Fallon McElligott, we have taken advantage of verbatims in conducting "communications checks" for several years. A "communications check" is the agency's means of measuring if a campaign is on strategy. We conduct these communications checks for several of our clients, positioning them as a means of collecting qualitative information with a quantitative sample. Although a quantitative sample of 75 one-on-one personal interviews is most often used, most of the questions are open ended and demand a heavy amount of coding. However, we feel this opportunity of "getting inside consumers" heads" is well worth the time and money. Answers to these up front open-ended questions enable us to probe for what is working in each execution, why it is working and how it is working. The extensive use of consumer verbatims provides both agency and client with a thorough understanding of how consumers actually feel about the executions.
A few years ago, we produced a rather controversial television campaign for a retail financial client. This series of seven commercials featured a comedy troupe taking a rather irreverent look at bankers and their habits. The client was concerned about how such a campaign "would play back home." We realized that simple numbers would not be reassuring enough for a campaign like this. Thus, interviewers were told to probe extensively so that we could also feel what respondents were feeling. The research must have been a success as the campaign went on to win several awards, including a Gold Lion at Cannes.
"It's a cute commercial. It makes you laugh so you're more apt to watch it. It might be worth checking into since they're making it easier to bank."
"I thought it was cute, entertaining. It was not honest at all. It's convenient to bank there, but they have terrible customer service. The commercial was nice. Go to the bank and they are rude."
At the same time, verbatims are also extremely valuable in communicating to creatives what is right-and not wrong- about an execution. At Fallon McElligott, the role of advertising research is to identify problems, but never to propose solutions. Thus, we go out, talk to consumers, "get inside their heads" and return to tell the creatives what's working-and what's not.
Last fall, we tested several rough mockups of a proposed campaign for one of our clients. During the one-on-one interviews, we collected our share of pre and post-exposure measurements, but, once again, focused most heavily on what consumers were feeling. We discovered that we had a "clutter busting" campaign-but consumers had problems remembering who the sponsor was:
"It was right to the point. It caught my interest and was short and direct and a subject that interests me immensely. But you need more information. I felt that after watching the commercial, I wanted to know much more about what as said."
"Wow! Powerful stuff. I often think about that kind of stuff, but I don't think I could ever pull it off. Actually, it made me think of my parents and all the hardships they went through. Yes, I thought about my parents. My father died when he was only 60. That ad really makes you appreciate what we have now, doesn't it?"
Ironically, neither respondent was able to name the sponsor of the ad. But we used the intensity of the consumer verbatims to convince the client to stick with the campaign, while the creatives did their own fine tuning. After further "fine tuning," the ads were produced and have gone on to perform admirably in the marketplace.
As noted, verbatims are much more valuable in communicating to creatives what people are feeling about the ads- and why they are feeling that way. At the same time, they can be significantly more important than column after column of numbers. For some reason, creatives have a natural aversion to numbers, but they can readily relate to words.
A few weeks ago, the results of an internal communication check were being presented to a creative group. One writer reacted quite negatively; in fact, he went bonkers. As one table of numbers followed another, his behavior became much more irrational. Finally, realizing that lives could be in danger, I began soothing him by reading verbatims. After two, he quieted down. By five, he was downright contrite. By seven, he was shaking his head, saying, "Well, they sure are stupid, but if that's the way they feel, I guess that's the way we gotta go."
That little story, more than anything else, conclusively demonstrates the true value of verbatims. Numbers have their purpose and should not be ignored. However, they often provide only a small glimpse of the big picture. Verbatims are the words of people, the reason the research is being done in the first place. A few well-placed open-ended questions will add a valuable "third dimension" to your research and enable you to get every penny possible out of your research budget.