THE KEY - Consumer Diagnostics | Qualitative Research Methodologies | Pretest | Bricolage | Brand Equity WRAP

THE KEY METHODOLOGIES

THE CLASSICS

Narrative, Phenomenological, Grounded Theory, Ethnography and Case Study approaches have been used at The Key since its inception, albeit in modern adaptations in the form of Tupperware Group Discussion, Story Telling Sessions, Auto-ethnography, Video-ethnography, Netnography, In-situ Interviewing, Social Reporting, Style Leader Groups, Socio-cultural Groups, Buddy Groups, Reconvened Sessions, Neighborhood Groups, Observation Sessions, Observation Sessions,Shop Alongs etc

Tupperware Group Discussion

Giving a focus group discussion a new avataar. If it is a discussion on something as passionate as cooking and food, what better way than a simulation of real life setting to engage the respondents in a sort of a Tupperware Group Discussion. For a microwave research, two women were chosen as co-hosts who would cook a meal to serve to their guests who were none other than their neighbours. The co-hosts were not allowed to use the burner and this fact was revealed to them on the day of the luncheon party. They were asked to use only the microwave to cook. This enabled the researchers to understand how women can use the microwave creatively despite the deprivation of the burner.

Social Reporting

How to ensure observations are captured without the researcher being there. People unwittingly tell what they think is important whereas for the researcher even a small nuances matter. Social Reporting is The Key’s way of being observant in absentia. The Key asks someone else close to the respondent to be their eyes. This way we managed to even observe a woman take bath while our Social Reporter, her close friend/relative filled out a form that asked her to capture key elements of the bathing process. That is how we arrived at a redefinition of context for the loofah.

THE CONTEMPORARY

NLP, Sensory Consumer Research, Metaphor Elicitation, Deconstruction, Social Cognition, Social Diffusion, Participatory Action Research, Heuristic Decision Making, Bricolage, Emotional Collage, Community Research, Consensus Mapping, Attribution Theory

Bricolage

Bricolage is a composite and multi-disciplined approach to studying consumer behaviour. It is a complicated (and yet a very natural) process that makes use of multiple forms of research, analysis, investigation, and interpretation. It requires researchers to seek many divergent perspectives, allowing new understandings and knowledge to emerge from the synthesis. At one level, it is "narrative inquiry" including visual, verbal, musical and written narrative texts. At another it is using the tools of traditional market research (qualitative and quantitative), desk research, anthropology, semiotics and whatever else seems more capable of shedding light on the issue being examined. It means reducing our dependence on only one methodology.

Bricolage has another important benefit -- it allows us to piece together a fully rounded view (not dependent on what individual respondents say or do in the context of the study), rather than one partial and distorted perspective. It also produces a more interesting and stimulating working experience for each research specialist--a series of collaborations and co-authored studies have become the norm at The Key rather than the exception in our working lives.

NLP (Neurolinguistic Programming)

NLP (neurolinguistic programming) is a model of thinking that is more popular for its VAK representation model than for its real use as a creative technique. For us NLP stands for what Richard Bandler actually meant it to be used – to accelerate our learning about human behavior. We use NLP for an engaging stimulus, we use NLP to describe a brand sensorially and we use NLP for what it is meant to be – a practical technique that combines creativity and curiosity with a methodology. Asking people to talk about feelings is a cognitive exercise. Encouraging people to reexperience a brand in memory (by accessing the five senses) provides a completely different set of information.

A chutney research that used all five senses to understand the real character of the new brand, 2011

THE POST MODERN

Photo-voice elicitation, Art-based Research, Darwinization, Collaborative Ethnography, Brand Equity WRAP, Multiple Character Iding, INDICES(Indirect and Direct consumer experiences), Retrospective Approach, Street Speak and lots more that don’t have names yet.

6 Types of Images That Elicit an Emotional Response

THE EXCLUSIVES - PROPRIETARY TO THE KEY

PresearchTM

A mandatory protocol followed by The Key which entails pre –researching the category, target group or the context to arrive at crystallised research objectives, a sound recruitment criteria and type of stimulus to be exposed. This is The Key Way of Working – which makes it very different from other research companies

BrewSM - Brand Equity WRAP

the key’s proprietary framework of doing a qualitative brand track

The Key Pretest Framework

The key does not, in principle, undertake any copy testing projects. The Key believes in exploratory rather than evaluative studies. However as a part of an ongoing study, if any pre or post copy testing is required, it does so with its proprietary framework as the template

Blert

A mobile app based social platform that enables people to record their opinions on any subject that moves them. The questions are predetermined and select responses could also be featured in social media, publications or TV channels.

Click to visit the Blert Website

Download Blert app on your android phone from Playstore now

If you think you have suddenly entered a world of scholars and academia, worry not. The Key’s underlying tenet is simplicty. It simply unlocks what seems a knowledge black box. Simply put, all these methodologies, research approaches and techniques have inter disciplinary moorings of psychology, sociology, anthropology and behavioral economics and now even neuro-science. All these have been put in use already by The Key. The Key firmly believes where economics, social and neuro sciences and psychology meet, they should tell the same story. In general, the social sciences proceed as if interdisciplinary disagreements do not matter, while in fact, all would benefit by paying more attention to progress in the other disciplines, because there is only one objective reality – that of understanding the consumer making a decision.

CONSUMER SEGMENTATION

Click here to find out which Behavioural Typology you belong to in