It should come as no surprise that historically, the market research industry has had a tendency to stick with the tried-and-true. And why not? Traditional approaches to consumer insights have netted a multitude of product, service and customer experience successes over the years. And researchers as a breed tend to be cautious and sometimes even suspicious of new methods. But let’s not forget that today’s consumers and their world have changed. Their time is in higher demand and their attention spans are shorter than ever. Technology is often highlighted as the biggest impetus behind change in consumer behavior, and often that very technology opens up new research possibilities that weren’t even imaginable before.

If so much has changed in the world, are we failing to keep up as researchers? Keep in mind that change isn’t necessarily a bad thing. So what can we do beyond just chasing the change in order to actually create and lead this positive change? With new approaches come new opportunities to reach consumers in more exciting ways, to be more efficient, to gain insight in real-time or even predict what consumers are likely to do or want in the future.

In this post, we’ll introduce some non-traditional approaches to doing traditional market research, and why we believe you should take a closer look at each one.

Non-Traditional Quantitative Research

Predictive Models

While everyone is talking about Big Data and AI, for most corporate researchers it’s predictive models that are the real new frontier. Predictive modeling is a category of powerful statistical analysis techniques that predict potential future scenarios or behaviors based on a robust set of data. This technique can combine historical and current data, including data other than just consumer survey data, and generates a model to help predict future outcomes. Data is collected or fused, a statistical model is built, predictions are run, and the model is adjusted or validated as additional data becomes available.

Predictive models are used to identify future market trends in new product development, product packaging and promotions, advertising effectiveness and customer or product experience. A highly powerful application of predictive modeling can replace (or enhance) repeat descriptive research already completed; for example, for frequent product releases.

Does your organization spend a lot of time and resources understanding new product releases in a consistent area or line of business time after time?  Do you get the same survey from the same external partner for every product several times a year?

Use of predictive modeling can be a powerful tool to upgrade your new product development model and process, and save a tremendous amount of resources by avoiding the need to study the same variables over and over.

Another powerful advantage of predictive modeling is that it allows researchers and decision makers to examine new scenarios that they may have not been considered or even have been possible to consider. For example, imagine if you knew how new product feature combinations would perform before having to invest in creating them.

As a newer, less-traditional form of analysis, predictive modeling is by no means for the faint of heart. But its power can be transformational for your work, your team, and the bottom line of your company.

Non-Traditional Qualitative Research

Consumer Co-Creation

Many brands still love using focus groups. Just like all traditional methods, qualitative groups, especially when done well, have a respected place in the tool kit of modern researchers.  However, with the introduction of new technology, busy and savvy consumers and shrinking budgets for necessities like travel, powerful and non-traditional qualitative techniques are easier than ever.

One of our favorite revolutionary techniques is co-creation! Co-creation is a process in which brands and customers work together to develop new directions, ideas, solutions and ultimately better products and services. It removes the wall, literally and figuratively, between the product maker and the consumer— especially when compared to the traditional focus groups (the most popular qualitative tradition). The power of co-creation is that it eliminates the risk of having to guess what the end user may want or desire, either after the product is already released or overall. By engaging the end user up front in an open, direct and collaborative fashion, well-executed co-creation can be quite effective in reducing iteration and risk of failure in the market.

Harnessing Qualitative Co-Creation

Like predictive models in the quantitative sphere, qualitative co-creation is a flexible method that can be adjusted to fit different needs in your organization. It can also be utilized in different media, such as in-person or virtual media, for the long- or short-term.

One of our favorite ways to achieve qualitative co-creation is through the use of online power communities. The way Imagine If defines these is based on using a virtual “room” or “place” where consumers and brands, with expert design and community management, can engage in a robust ongoing conversation through in-person meeting, video, audio, creative and projective methods as well as observational methods. Whether one uses ideation principles or a concept test/iteration approach, co-creation is effective at getting to a deeper understanding of consumer needs and wants that results in more value.

Co-Creation Mistakes to Avoid

Co-creation is easy to get wrong. Simply having a technology platform and a customer database for potential respondents does not automatically make a successful formula for co-creation.  Research design principles (both qualitative and quantitative) are critical. This is often not one of the core competencies of “platform providers.” In other words, research is often a foreign discipline for technology companies. The delicate art of consumer and community engagement is also key and often not part of the repertoire of the traditional researcher.

Like all other new and traditional methods, both predictive models and qualitative co-creation require researchers on both sides to be bold enough to try something new and strong enough to persevere through the challenges of adoption. And this formula requires deep client and agency collaboration.

Creating impact is our obsession. Some of our clients call it our addiction. For an agency that chooses to boldly lead instead of follow, contact Imagine If today.