How Bridging Quant and Qual Research Can Lead Brands to Stronger Consumer Insights

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Finding a nexus between quantitative and qualitative data could be a turning point for many brands. A Suzy expert explains how to find it and what tools are best.

In a perfect world, there’d be no separation between the ways consumers tell brands they behave and how they actually do behave. Of course, we don’t live in a perfect world, and part of what market researchers have to do today is figure out a way to bridge this gap.

“More data” may seem like a solution, but even with the outsized casks of data floating around, an answer really comes down to the ways it’s analyzed. And in that space, there’s plenty of room for improvement.

“The reality is a lot of the tools that we’re using are woefully inadequate for managing the differences between observed and stated behavior,” said Suzy VP of Market Research William Cimarosa, during his keynote address at the inaugural State of the Consumer 2021 Summit. “If you don’t start to rethink the tools you have in your toolkit, you risk getting left behind.”

Cimarosa suggested that researchers leverage quantitative and qualitative methodologies to create more targeted approaches and paint a clearer picture of consumer behavior. To help set up his explanation of how brands can execute this, Cimarosa conducted an interactive experiment.

He projected 17 terms onto the screen, one at a time, such as “vacation,” “swimming,” “heat,” and “bathing suit.” When he was through, he asked summit attendees to write down as many of them as they could remember.

Cimarosa revealed that he recently performed this experiment with 5,000 students, who served as de facto consumers. He used the projected words to create a “pool experience,” and though the term “pool” was never mentioned, 64% of the students recalled seeing it posted. 

This occurred because they leaned on latent variables, “the past experiences that shaped the way the students experienced these words,” Cimarosa explained. Also included among the latent variables were “the demographic details that describe the students” — the consumer — themselves. 

Nowadays, market researchers can incorporate consumers’ latent variables into predictions about how they’ll perceive a brand, Cimarosa observed. These include their psychographic makeup, product usage barriers, and brand image association. 

With such qualitative research into latent variables secured, brands can generate attribute statements on questionnaires that consumers will find easier to relate to. Plus, Cimarosa said,  “It’s much easier for them to talk about the experiences that they’ve actually had, [rather] than asking them about what they’re going to do.”

With the qualitative exploration of the pool experience, and a quantitative model that describes how these experiences related to the observed words in the experiment, there was an 89% prediction accuracy that “pool” word recall was possible by participants, he said.

Though Cimarosa described the whole process as a “parlor trick,” he said it still “uses some of the tools that are available to you today.” He observed that the 89% rate is “often close, if not better, than some of your forecast or normative outputs.” 

“Creating a pool experience is not fundamentally any different than creating a category entry experience, a brand share-switching experience, or a loyalty experience,” he added. “And this wasn’t even a robust study; it was just a demonstration of what a latent variable is.”

He challenged researchers to begin to “intercept” consumers when they engage in a behavior point worthy of note, like buying a product for the first time, when they’re showing brand loyalty upon a repurchase, or when they’re making a switch to another brand. 

A new tool just launched by Suzy, Suzy Live, an end-to-end IDI solution that combines Suzy’s always-on quant platform with in-depth online interviews, can help researchers do just that. It brings rapid and rigorous qualitative and quantitative research into one accessible platform. 

Cimarosa describes it as “game-changing” because it allows him “to quickly iterate and evolve, and get around stage gates” for clients. 

“If market research is going to stay relevant, it needs to stay relevant in a world with data science, where more and more observable behaviors are going to be important,” he added. “We need to translate that into tools for market researchers to make better brand experiences.” 

With Suzy Live, researchers can ask consumers face-to-face things like, “How did you feel at the time you made your purchase?” A response generates a qualitative latent variable, and with such data, “you can start to tell a story about what drives that behavioral change,” Cimarosa said. 

“Qualitatively, you can come up with the attribute statements, and quantitatively you can find out which ones are driving that behavior,” he added. “Now you’re playing with fire.”

For more information on ways brands can navigate the market insights terrain, today and in the coming year, watch the Suzy Summit, State of the Consumer: 2021, at Suzy.com.