Ken Parker - Co-founder & Director, Discovery Research Ken has been working in MR for over 35 years as a qual/quant researcher. After a four year stint at NOP, he joined RSL (now IPSOS MORI), leaving as a Joint Managing Director, to set up his own company Discovery Research together with Trish Parker. Since then they have also set up Spectrum Viewing Facilities, and more recently The Thinking Shed. He is a Fellow of the MRS. Read the full biography here.

Just Good Friends:
Behavioural economics and qualitative research.

By Ken Parker - 16th December, 2011

Behavioural economics is rapidly being accepted within the world of marketing communications and market research, but what is it exactly and how does it fit with other research methodologies?

Well, like traditional qualitative research it has its roots in the social sciences, but their direction from here is one of almost polar opposites. While qualitative research has always been more synonymous with describing emotions, preferences, attitudes, beliefs and opinions, behavioural economics is concerned with behaviour. While intentions (the domain of traditional qualitative research) might be expressed with strong conviction, they might not lead to a physical action. Behaviour is manifest in reality.

The pillars of behavioural economics

A word to the wise here, though, while the term behavioural economics sounds simple – i.e. by studying human behaviour you will understand human decision making – it isn’t. To begin with it has pillars or core considerations: heuristics (experience-based techniques for problem solving and discovery such as ‘rule of thumb’ and common sense), contextual influences and biases. Each pillar has a role and each of these needs to be taken into account, regardless of whether it applies to a particular purchase decision, in case it has an influence.

Traditional qualitative research methods play a strong role within behavioural economics but behavioural economics fundamentally challenge the traditional approach to qualitative research of simply exploring attitudes and claimed behaviour based on recall to discover why a decision was made.

This has always been a contentious argument, as there have always been qualitative methodologies that fit within the ‘here and now’ principles of behavioural economics . For example, ethnography involves considerable time being spent with a respondent, accompanying him or her, observing the actions and testing hypotheses in a live situation. But with the introduction of online qualitative methods it really is a moot point. Behaviour can be monitored in real time. With the addition of online communities the toolkit is complete.

And yet, while many qualitative researchers are acknowledging the importance of behavioural economics, they rarely show any indication of employing an integrated approach.

Here at Discovery, with the help of our online qualitative platform, The Thinking Shed, we are doing just that…

Using The Thinking Shed, respondents are invited to a community that has been set up specifically to answer a research need or needs. The community could be short-term (just a few weeks), ‘continuous’ (a year or more) or anything in between.

While online research offers many of the same facilities as traditional research, it also allows researchers to see the content offered by respondents live. Another of its beauties is that it puts researchers in control, giving them the ability to chivvy respondents who are being tardy with uploading or participating, update requirements and probe for further information. Meanwhile respondents enjoy using the tools provided, such as uploading photos, videos or diaries and participating in forums.

As a result, content that is uploaded tends to be semi-(self) ethnographical. Respondents can report on their behaviour on a daily or on an ad hoc basis according to the researcher’s needs, and its relevance. This means responses are over time and at the ‘right time’. They cover the ‘here and now’, with little necessity to report recalled behaviour. For example, photos and videos taken using mobile phones capture the point of purchase and can be uploaded with accompanying commentary. Diaries can be used to track the purchase process and potential influences. At Discovery, we have encouraged respondents to keep food diaries, whereby they have photographed their snacks during the day as an aide memoire and uploaded them to The Thinking Shed when they got home.

Where applicable, friends, family and opinion leaders can be involved in the content, resulting in more thorough reporting of behaviour. Moderators do not need to ask the question ‘Why?’ because it is the interpretation from observation and indirect questions that reveal the answers. An example of this is a study that Discovery conducted in France where mums involved their children when looking for breakfast cereals.

Of course, using such tools involves creative specification of tasks, keen encouragement being related to respondents through chivvying and probing, as well as painstaking analysis and interpretation that needs to be carried out by skilled researchers. As a result, online qualitative research is ideal to capture behavioural information that helps us to understand some of the key pillars relating to behavioural economics. We have found it invaluable at Discovery, for example, when looking at uploaded photos of respondents’ favourite things in their household, to investigate the context of their homes by looking at backgrounds: tidiness, artefacts and decoration.

Qualitative research can be used to understand behaviour and assist with key decisions that are made when developing advertising communications and marketing campaigns. They do not just provide a theoretical background, but used in the right way they provide practical solutions to arrive at sound conclusions based on substance.

Many of the more salient behavioural economics pillars are best addressed by using online qualitative tools and, superficially, perhaps this would be the most obvious solution to address a research brief. Indeed, it is difficult to imagine a behavioural economics research project not including an element of online qualitative research. Nevertheless, traditional groups, depths and other qualitative data collection methods have very important parts to play, not least when exploring feelings, emotions and biases.

So, qualitative research is a strong partner with behavioural economics, but both online and offline data collection methods should be employed. This is not an either/or situation, where qualitative research needs to defend or distance itself from behavioural economics, but represents a great opportunity for the market research industry to take the initiative. By placing behavioural economic principles at the heart of projects, qualitative research increases its practical value to the benefit of clients across all sectors.

To conclude, behavioural economics is not simplistic. Furthermore, qualitative research is not its enemy but its friend. The combination of qualitative research techniques with behavioural economics moves the discipline from the theoretical to the practical.

Ken Parker

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