Tom H. C. Anderson - Next Gen Market Research

Last week as part of a new series of posts on ‘Next Gen Market Research‘ I discussed Biometric Research with Anderson Analytics’ Ryan Brown. Today I’m posing some of the same questions to Gosia Skorek.

Gosia is currently working on Anderson Analytics’ psychological content analysis & emotional text analytics efforts. Along with her impressive academic background at Jacobs University in Bremen and University of California Merced, her previous experience includes working at MindShare Worldwide, a Consumer Insights firm in the UK and Deutche Welle in Germany.

Gosia Skorek
Consumer Insights & Psychology
Anderson Analytics, LLC

Tom: Gosia, What is Next Gen Research to you, what should it include and not include?

Gosia: Next generation market research should study more fundamental mental processes in order to gain a complete understanding of the way consumers think and feel. One way to achieve this is to follow the trends in social and cognitive psychology research that moves away from using self-reported data only. There are two major drawbacks of using self-reports. First, people are not always aware of their true emotions or attitudes, as they may not have access to certain information or memories. Second, they tend to hide answers that are socially undesirable. Thus, information obtained using self-reports, e.g. via questionnaires or interviews, may not necessarily reflect the ‘true’ phenomena we are trying to measure.

New implicit methods can overcome the above limitations to a large extent. Brand evaluation, attitudes, lifestyle reports, etc. involve both automatic and controlled processes (i.e. an automatic activation of a concept and its associations in memory versus a controlled verbal or written response). A common way to measure automatic processes is using computer tasks that require very fast decisions and do not allow for much conscious control. Other implicit research designs disguise the real purpose of the study or introduce tasks that direct participant’s attention away from the subject of interest. Such techniques can be introduced also in online studies and Anderson Analytics has been using them already for several years. They are, however, not applicable to every research question and are in some cases difficult to operationalize.

As a further step researchers could utilize neurological and biometric methods to better understand such processes like decision-making, judgments or emotions. Several techniques (e.g. fMRI, lie detectors, eye tracking, iris scans) have been developed to monitor subjects’ brain activity, heart rate, stress levels, etc. as they occur and can reflect people’s ‘real’ emotional and mental states. Application of such advanced techniques in market research would provide precious and reliable data, but one needs to remember that interpretation of such data is difficult and valid only upon correct conceptualization of investigated phenomena.

Due to the fact that both self-reports and other research methods have certain limitations, an ideal approach of the next generation would combine complex neurological measures with other behavioral methods like self-reports or reaction time data.
We need to remember, however, that these ‘new’ methods have to be used in a way that minimizes any physical or mental stress to participants. Volunteers need to be fully aware of the experimental techniques and possible threats and their data has to remain strictly anonymous. Once market researchers start using these complex methods one could imagine cases of harm and abuse, hence, a founding some sort of a review board would be needed to ensure the quality of these practices.

Tom: How about biometric/neurological research. Ryan and I discussed this on the blog the other day. How useful do you think it is, and do you thinkg it’s too intrusive for consumer insights?

Gosia: Intrusive methods like fMRI, iris scans, lie detectors, etc. are usually considered important and legitimate techniques when they are needed for the advance of the current knowledge, e.g. to learn about the functioning of the brain or to understand mental disorders. Using them for commercial purposes is likely to cause some controversy. People are likely to be skeptical about participating in studies that will `strap them down’ as they might be afraid what they might learn about themselves and how they might be judged by the experimenters. In a way they lose their privacy once they are monitored by high-tech equipment and they might not necessarily trust in the way companies will use their data. In addition, they might dislike the feeling of losing control over their responses and reactions. However, in the end it remains a decision of an individual whether or not to participate and it is their decision about what degree of intrusion is acceptable. With proper information about the studies and some incentives, however, people are likely to participate in such research.

As mentioned earlier, biometric and neurological techniques are not harmful to participants if they are properly designed, applied and interpreted while their data is protected. Hence, in my opinion they could be used in market research but companies would need to ensure safety, transparency and anonymity for their volunteers. This would require a lot of expertise and development. Obviously, the benefits of using such technologies would be great: limited cheating possibility as well as access to the ‘real’ thoughts, emotions, and feelings of their subjects. Researchers would not only gather opinions and reports but could map whole decision making processes and activated reactions. Yet, ensuring the quality of such research and protection of participants will be a challenge at the beginning of this new generation research.

In case you missed my previous blog post with Gosia called “A Psychological Viewpoint on Soical Networks” you can access it here.

@TomHCAnderson