What’s different – and noteworthy – is the way technology is being leveraged.  Two companies come to mind, yet I’m sure there are others:

iModerate – Fields a larger quant study and then pulls off certain participants to have a one-on-one follow up with a professional moderator.  As their site says:  Research>iMpact provides a hybrid approach in which online qualitative sessions are incorporated into virtually any online survey, giving you qualitative insight that enhances and clarifies the quantitative data.

Invoke Solutions – Seemingly more quantitative in orientation, Invoke is leveraging their technology to obtain richer and deeper open-ended responses.  They say that it’s like a focus group experience, but I’m going to need to learn more before I’m convinced.  Having said that, I’ve seen enough that I’m intrigued and I want to learn more.  The client-interface portion looks very powerful.

But are either of these “new”?  I started this topic thinking, “No, they’re not really new at all.  Just a new twist on an old approach.”

But the more I think about this, the more I believe these might be new approaches.  The dividing line for me lies in the definition of “qualitative research.”

• Qualitative research explores.
• Great open-ended responses in quantitative research explains.

For now, I’m going to continue to think of these newer approaches in these ways – and make client recommendations accordingly.  And, as always, I’ll continue to seek out more info.  If you’ve got something to share on this subject, please do!

We have monthly phone plans, unlimited data plans, and pre-paid phones, but what about a service that says if you agree to view two ads a day on your mobile, you’ll get X off your monthly carrier changes, and five ads a day you’ll get Y off your charges?  Or extra minutes?  Or free text credits?

Certainly, marketers love the platform because people are literally attached to their phones at the hip.  And, if like TV programming viewed on the Web, a person couldn’t get their messages unless they saw the 10-15-second ad first, theoretically, they would be more attentive to the ad.  At least this form of mobile advertising is more opt-in than any other.  The consumer makes an agreement with their cell phone provider and by extension the ad network:  I’ll agree to watch you ads if you lower my bill.

Are we so entrenched in the cable TV model that we’re not thinking outside the box?  I think there could be an opportunity here.  What do you think?

And social media (Web 2.0’s driver)?  While there’s a lot of hype, we’re beginning to hear that interest among some segments is waning.  Dunbar’s Number has been trotted back out as rationalization for the slowed growth.  (How many “friends” can you really follow?)

So, can social media be made more engaging and relevant with “stickiness”?

There are lots of folks out there trying, but the one concept that’s caught my eye for its potential “marketing legs” is location-based mobile services – such as Foursquare, Yelp, and Gowalla.  Foursquare seems to be the one to watch and it’s doing some interesting things.  Its site says:

foursquare is a cross between a friend-finder, a social city-guide and a game that rewards you for doing interesting things.  We aim to build things to not only help you keep up with the places your friends go, but that encourage you to discover new places and challenge you to explore your neighborhood in new ways.

Consider customer loyalty programs.  You login and say you’re at a restaurant.  That restaurant knows you’ve been there 10 times before and could reward you with a free dessert.  No cards to keep track of and you are engaged with the brand as you know your actions get you bonuses sooner.

A brand can promote its involvement via Twitter, at checkout, or wherever it makes sense.

Part of the social aspect comes from Foursquare’s “mayor” concept.  If you’re the most frequent visitor to a location, you’re crowned mayor.  A bit of a game or contest that could bring people in again and again.

What about brands without a retail presence?  Pepsi sponsored a NY charity event for CampInteractive:  every time New Yorkers checked in from any location with Foursquare, points were tallied and Pepsi gave money.  In this case, social engagement with a purpose.

Even without charitable involvement or the “mayor” concept, this is a newer form of social media that provides something tangible to the user.  Consequently, in my view, a highly “sticky” idea.

One could argue that everything on the left side of this diagram is anthropologic.  However, I contend that “discourse analysis” is so reliant on words that we must acknowledge techniques that rely equally much or more on physical observation.

The three types of approaches utilized in anthropologic market research which most immediately come to mind are:

Ethnography.  From the Greek “ethos” (the character of a people and their distinctive culture) and writing.  In short, to observe and document.

Semiotics.  The original Greek meant “interpreter of signs.”  Today, in business applications, it involves studying communication processes, signs and symbols.  A British colleague pointed out the two main influencers of this discipline:  Peirce and Saussure.  (For a quick read, see Wiki).  To me, semiotics is about cues and norms.  For example, we tend to think of banks as “institutions” with strong edifices or tall buildings; we want them strong.  “The friendly bank” sounds slightly oxymoronic.  Clearly, it’s more complicated than this – and I hope others will weigh in!

Ergonomics.  For the sake of brevity, this is about how people interact with things, either physically, mentally, or organizationally.  Human factors and usability testing fall into this category.

The second thing to keep in mind about this quadrant, as with “sociologic” research, is that we can study people individually or in groups – a major consideration in study design.

This quadrant has been “trending” for the past decade or more.  With the aid of technology, we’ve been pushing into the lower left of this area.  There are dozens of new innovations and techniques, but the two that have stuck with me are the following:

Wireless cameras for individual ethnography and usability studies.  People can create, with limited direction from the moderator/facilitator, mini-documentaries.  Want to go along with a man when he’s trying to pick out a gift for his wife?  You can do that.  Want to see and hear how a woman works with a new appliance she just bought?  You can do that too.  I really don’t believe this is a gimmick or fad.  While some might think a “con” of this method is that people will only show or discuss what they want, the clear upside is the natural setting.   My experience:  I’ve never done an in-home study where the bed wasn’t made, but I have done online sessions and seen unmade beds and messy rooms.  So, like any other method, the pros and cons need to be assessed.  Overall, this is a terrific advancement.

CCTV for merchandising.  Several years ago I did interviews with executives in the corporate security business.  One of the men I interviewed told me that his closed-circuit TVs were attracting the interest of major retailers; the software they had developed, for use at airports, looked for things that weren’t moving (e.g., bags with bombs).  What the retailers wanted to know is if the software could be modified to assess what I call “merchandising wear-out.”  That is, a display is put at the front of the store.  Could the camera/software tell 1) if the display had “stopping power” (to get people to enter the store and/or look at the display) and 2) if the traffic flow patterns indicated it was time to change/modify the display?  A bit creepy, perhaps – but realistically we know there are security cameras in stores.  Net, net:  this is a clear example of when the absence of behavior can represent critical learning.

What are your favorite new methods or tools in this area?

The last paragraph really caught my attention as I had just participated in a creativity session last week.

“Science historian George Dyson believes the Internet’s flood of information has altered the process of creativity: what once required ‘collecting all available fragments of information to assemble a framework of knowledge’ now requires ‘removing or ignoring unnecessary information to reveal the shape of knowledge hidden within.’ Creativity by destruction rather than assembly.”

The image I got from this was of “sculpting knowledge.” As a qualitative researcher, identifying consumer insights has always been about sculpting knowledge.

What does this have to do with my brain online? Well, my brain has been overwhelmed lately. I had some downtime over the holidays and I signed up for even more newsletters and feeds. I now need to cut back. I need time to think. The Internet is causing, as Evgeny Morozov said in the same article, “the disappearance of retrospection and reminiscence.”

It’s like a swimmer’s lung capacity: a swimmer might be able to hold their breath for a long time, but they still have to come up for air. I need a breath – to sculpt, process, digest – whatever your metaphor.

So is the Web changing how I think? No, at best it’s impacting how I problem solve (as I’m able to seek out so much more information in this new way). It provides me with more to think about.

Creativity is an iterative, infinite process: from inspiration to output and back again. It’s likely we’ve always been “assembling” and “destroying.” Said another way, when we seek the “knowledge hidden within,” it’s always through the prism of our “framework of knowledge.”

What are your thoughts?