Qualitative research is gaining importance and is evolving
Qualitative research has been evolving over the past decades and is becoming more important across the board of marketing and research departments. Even big quant giant AC Nielsen is now setting up a worldwide qualitative division. And that is no surprise. The ‘why’ behind everything we do in life is not simply found by filling in some online surveys. Advertising and marketing alone is not enough anymore to be relevant to your customer. In order to create meaningful products and brands we need to gain a true understanding of their motivations. We need to go qualitative.
Psychological vs demographic insights
There are now many methods on the market that use psychology to reveal the underlying consumer motivations. 90% of all our daily decisions are based on these unconscious psychological motives. Companies as Motivaction use psychological segmentation as a base for brand and communication strategy. Segmentation based on psychological behaviour is way more effective in building relevant brands and products than traditional demographic segments. It does not matter how old you customer is. It’s his motivation that will trigger the final purchase decision on shelf.
The disadvantages of generalised models
The problem with these psychological segmentation models (also the 12 Pearson archetypes) is that they are generalized and therefore assume that our underlying motivations are the same for every product category. Obviously there is a vast difference between consuming an icecream and driving your car. Yes, using a generalised segmentation will bring you better results than the traditional demographic ones but you are still exploring on a surface level. You won’t have a truly deep understanding of the needs of your customer until you start using category specific segmentation.
The lack of structure and loss of data
Qualitative research is mostly presented in a huge stack of paper and handed over to the research or marketing manager of a corporation. It is not a suprising fact that many of these reports end up dusting away in a drawer of a desk. This is why research companies are now also offering strategy to the confused client, to minimise the loss of valuable information and to help make sense of the insights. Still however there has been no method that allows insights to be used in an easy and workable way after the work is done. Untill now.
Koos brings superior insights and advanced workability
Koos is the first to introduce Morphological research in the Netherlands. Morphological research is based upon the most modern full psychological theory and it recognises that important but insignificant daily routines (like shaving) are driven by complex, unconscious and hidden psychological motives. It offers deeper insight than traditional qualitative market research by providing a complete, holistic understanding of consumers’ motivation and behaviour, enabling the development of pragmatic recommendations.
This results in some significant advantages over existing theories;
– Superior insights & strategy through the use of category specific (non-generic) psychological segmentation models
– Precise and simple implementation through it’s pragmatic and workable structure
Koos takes it one step further – from insights to strategy to design
Where current consultancies are starting to offer research and strategy, Koos takes it even one step further. Together with our international research and strategy partners Koos developed a method to translate insights into actual product concepts, consisting of 3D presentation drawings, technical sketches and concept statement sheets. Concepts you can directly take into consumer testing.
And that’s the power of Strategic Design.
