There is more than one way to obtain a person’s first impulse response. You might be thinking – um really? Well, people talk about neuroimaging now being used in research and there is an excellent discussion in the latest issue of Quirk’s weighing the pros and cons of using neuroimaging in Marketing Research. I can summarize this pretty quickly. Neuroimaging equipment and neural testing is expensive and only the largest companies can afford to experiment with this consumer research methodology, which has yet to be validated.
The field of neuroscience is emerging and being utilized in marketing research; however, like the Nokia Lumia cell phone beta testing commercial is implying that all phones up until the creation of their new cell phone were a beta test – this feels like it is still in beta testing.
Online focus groups are qualitative research, which is ideal for exploring concepts, copy development before copy testing, advertising idea exploration before ad testing, and getting new ideas and consumer insights from customers in real-time
. Mindspot research is using a chat-based discussion and a process we have perfected over the past several years to get consumer insights -fast. It is qualitatively similar to consumer neural impulse response. The speed of the online focus groups allows us to obtain and report on consumer’s initial reactions quickly.
By limiting the time associated with responding, it allows participants in our online focus groups to put a stake in the sand and back up their claim in the discussion. We have some insightful and lively conversations during our online discussions in real-time!
We are not saying it is quantifiable and statistically reliable like it would be if we conducted a survey with a large number of people. Qualitative research, like the focus groups we conduct from our offices based in Orlando, Florida, is exploratory research. Chat-based online focus groups provide excellent direction at a fraction of the cost of neural impulse response and neuroimaging equipment. It is a tried and true exploratory research methodology with a new forum that is working for today’s technologically savvy and fast-typing consumers.
People, in general, are now used to chatting online and texting on the fly, and more conditioned to respond immediately in our focus groups. Online groups virtually eliminate any group think and dominant respondents. This relatively inexpensive online research methodology offers a step-change that is budget-friendly and insight heavy. I’m just saying this after reading the article in Quirk’s we featured on the Mindspot Facebook page this morning. Not our friend yet –join the conversation by visiting our FB page and following us Twitter and LinkedIn.
by Lynnette Leathers President of Mindspot Research, a Division of Mindspot, Inc.
