Over-indexing on research

Nothing connects me more quickly and directly to consumers than qualitative research. With huge databases of consumer information like Simmons, I can hone in on your target market’s demographics, psychographics and purchase habits fairly accurately. I can see whether or not the consumers in question are “tech-savvy,” brand loyal, and which brand of shampoo they buy most often. I can even see how many of them agree with the statement “Real men don’t cry.” But numbers and percentages without a face behind them are destined to remain as such. Dry, unemotional, uninspiring.

Qualitative research, on the other hand, lacks the statistical significance of quantitative research but provides something that numbers can’t: a story. Lots of them, actually. Each ethnographic method, whether focus groups, ethnographies or something else, helps us understand not so much what people do, but rather why they do it and how they feel about it. It allows us to connect a seemingly small decision or behavior to larger values and ways of seeing the world.

For me, qualitative research serves more than a market research/career function. Hearing other people talk about their families, their struggles, and even why they listen to a particular radio station reminds me that all of us have an interesting and inspiring story to tell. An undocumented car salesman with no social security number in Houston tells of paying taxes because it’s the “right thing” to do and because he hopes his good behavior now will be recognized in the future with a chance at US citizenship. A daycare worker in Miami has tears in her eyes as she remembers the moment her son entered high school in the United States and she realized she was never going to be able to return to live in Venezuela. These are the stories that move me, that help me put faces behind the percentages and indexes we rely so heavily on.