One hundred seventy or so mostly qual researchers and some of their clients convened in Vienna last week for ESOMAR’s annual qualitative research conference. As ESOMAR is becoming the global research organization, the event offered a view into the challenges of conducting qualitative research in different cultures and countries. The participant list was dominated by Europeans, but the Middle East, Asia, and the U.S. were fairly well represented.
The presentations fell roughly into two categories: case studies focused on a creative solution for engaging consumers (for example, conducting qual interviews among a prison population in the course of developing a messaging strategy for Samaritans, a UK suicide prevention organization) and presentations that focused more on findings (“Smells like teen spirit: Asian youth in the aftermath of globalization”).
One of the most intriguing (and entertaining) presentations was “Water wows: Tapping the unleashed potential of mobile phone.” Piyul Mukherjee and Pia Mollback-Verbic of Quipper Research in India showed how they deployed mobile phones with video to conduct ethnographic research on water use in Mumbai. They made the point—very clearly—that the videos contradicted consumers’ verbal reports gathered by more “traditional” qual techniques.
I participated in a session titled “The qualitative fringe” that consisted of five pecha kucha presentations (20 slides in six minutes and forty seconds!) and an hour-long discussion on the qual-quant divide. A common lament expressed during that discussion was that “junior” researchers are often tracked into qual or quant early in their careers. I think that may be more a European tendency that characteristic of the U.S.
Diana Derval’s keynote talk on Tuesday was intriguing—a blending of perceptual science and consumer marketing. According to Derval, there are distinct sensory differences between individuals that go a long way towards explaining our preferences. I knew that some of us are “super tasters”—far more sensitive to tastes than others, but I learned that there are big differences in hearing sensitivity, and that some of us are “super vibrators” who are many times more sensitive to touch than “normal” people.
The UK arguably leads the pack in terms of creative firm names: Sparkler, Join the Dots, Truth, Relish International, BrainJuicer and Waves all were represented.
