Research in a World Without Questions

Page 1 – CONGRESS 2012 Copyright © ESOMAR 2012 RESEARCH IN A WORLD WITHOUT QUESTIONS Tom Ewing • Bob Pankauskas ESOMAR Office: Barbara Strozzilaan 384 Eurocenter 2 1083 NH Amsterdam The Netherlands Tel.: +31-20-664 21 41 Fax: +31-20-664 29 22 Email: [email protected] Website: www.esomar.org Publication Date: September 2012 ESOMAR Publication Series Volume C12 ISBN 92-831-0260-6 Page 2 – CONGRESS 2012 Copyright © ESOMAR 2012 COPYRIGHT All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system of any nature, or transmitted or made available in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of ESOMAR. ESOMAR will pursue copyright infringements. In spite of careful preparation and editing, this publication may contain errors and imperfections. Authors, editors and ESOMAR do not accept any responsibility for the consequences that may arise as a result thereof. 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CONTACT US ESOMAR Eurocenter 2 Barbara Strozzilaan 384 1083 HN Amsterdam The Netherlands Tel.: +31 20 589 7800 Email: [email protected] Page 4 – CONGRESS 2012 Copyright © ESOMAR 2012 RESEARCH IN A WORLD WITHOUT QUESTIONS Tom Ewing • Bob Pankauskas INTRODUCTION Is it possible to do market research without asking direct questions? The idea may seem like a parlour game – the research equivalent of peeling a satsuma in one go – but there are excellent reasons to take it seriously. This paper will argue that “research without questions” is not only possible, it’s often essential – it’s the best way to get at what people actually do, not just what they say they do. This paper particularly covers behavioural economics, observational and ethnographic research, social media research and innovative qualitative techniques, and seeks to show the extraordinary possibilities of a “world without questions”. Separately, these areas have been the subject of much interest from researchers in recent years. This paper offers a review of the field, but also introduces new material in three areas. The first is a unifying framework for considering behaviour and decision making – one which particularly lends itself to “research without questions”. This is covered in Section III of the paper. This is designed to make these new research areas more practically useful and coherent, by giving buyers a framework for working out what they already know, what they need to observe and what they can actually do about it. The second is a series of studies and experiments conducted across these areas by BrainJuicer. These generally have no client involvement and appear in the paper as “BrainJuicer Experiments”. They are self-funded experiments using publically available tools, with the aim of creating research hypotheses not business effects. And the third is a selection of case studies from Allstate Insurance, which has a long track record of working with innovative techniques. These appear in the paper as “Allstate Case Studies” and offer a ‘client’s-eye view’ of the changing face of research. Not all the case studies involve indirect observation – they show that real research work will often involve a balance between direct intervention and observation. Where appropriate we also look at work done by other research companies, and outside the industry, in an attempt to offer a rounded picture of “research without questions”. And though we will focus on research without direct respondent interaction, where direct questioning would suit an aim better we will explore ways of doing it well. I: THE CASE FOR RESEARCH WITHOUT QUESTIONS Systems of thinking Before we explain how to reduce our reliance on direct research, it’s worth asking why we might need to. The case for moving away from direct research is often couched in pragmatic terms: the threat of falling response rates, matched against the opportunity created by the enormous increase in social media and customer data. But this is not the whole story. There is also a compelling theoretical case, based in how our brains and decisions work. According to the Nobel-winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman, the human mind contains two systems of thinking – system 1 and system 2 – which influence our judgements and decisions. He explains the systems, and explores their implications, in his essential book Thinking, Fast And Slow. Page 5 – CONGRESS 2012 Copyright © ESOMAR 2012 System 1 led decisions are fast, easy to make, rooted in experience and often implicit or subconscious. System 2 led decisions are more considered, take more cognitive effort to make, and we are more conscious of making them: they feel like thinking. Kahneman offers the following example of the two systems in action – a simple, but famous maths problem. “A bat and a ball cost $1.10. The bat costs $1 more than the ball. How much does the ball cost?” The answer is 5 cents (a 5-cent ball and a $1.05 bat) – but for the vast majority of people, the answer that springs to mind is 10 cents, because the question primes our brains to deduct $1 from $1.10, rather than work to solve the equation that forms the real problem. Earlier this year, BrainJuicer added the bat and ball question to an unrelated questionnaire – only 16% of respondents got it right, and 79% gave the obvious but wrong “10c” answer. What’s happening here, Kahneman says, is that our system 1 thinking process is urging us to accept an apparently obvious answer. To get to the correct answer, we have to engage system 2 and work through the problem. But very few do this – the default option is more attractive. In this case, the system 2 answer was the correct one. But system 2 isn’t always more correct, Kahneman says: what it mostly does is back up judgements made quickly and easily by system 1. Most of our decisions are – for better or worse – led by system 1, and system 2 can then provide convincing justification for said decisions if called upon to do so. As Kahneman says, “System 1 is the Oval Office. System 2 is the Press Office.” System 1 decisions vs. System 2 research So what does this have to do with market research questions? Well, calling on people to justify their actions is exactly what direct questioning tends to do. Direct response research often puts respondents into a situation where it actively encourages them to think through their answers, engaging their system 2 processing by asking them to actively recall past behaviour, express preferences between artificial choices, or give number values to dry, formally written attributes. There would be nothing wrong with this if it accurately captured behaviour, preferences or the reasons behind them. But it often doesn’t. One example is a test on FMCG packaging carried out by BrainJuicer to explore how the dual systems of thinking affected choices in a real world context. Experiment: Packaging with System 1 appeal BrainJuicer conducted this experiment for a client who was concerned that the test performance of their packaging was not reflecting on-shelf performance. We hypothesised that in test conditions, system 2 led decisions were taking precedence, and that in a store environment, faster system 1 led decisions would be more important. To demonstrate this we tested two packs. One (Brand B) had a smaller picture and gave more pack space to a set of information including the nutritional benefits of the food.

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