In a previous article, we outlined the brand research which every brand manager needs to deliver success in their role.

We also explained how to write a brief for the brand research team, to make sure that they know exactly what they are responsible for delivering.

In this article, we’ll explain how to check that the brand research team are structuring the research correctly, and we’ll share some tricks to make sure that the research will deliver insights that will enable you to make the right decisions for your brand.

We’ll also decode some of the odd language that research teams like to speak.

Tip #1: Ask questions that people understand

The trouble with some research is that often, the questions might make sense to the brand or the marketing team, but they make no sense to people who don’t work in those areas (in other words, most of the people that the research is aimed at).

We once saw some research which included a question about a typeface that the company was thinking about using. The question asked whether the new font was more trustworthy than the old one.

It’s highly unlikely that anyone responding to this question will have understood how a typeface can be ‘trustworthy’. But the structure of the research required them to tick an answer from one to five. So they couldn’t ask what the question meant or reply that they didn’t know. As a result, the output from this question might have been misleading or invalid.

To avoid this, read the research questionnaire from the brand research team. Think about each question as if you were someone who doesn’t work in branding or marketing. (It’s traditional to suggest that you imagine that you’ve asked your Gran to read this. But if your Gran is a Director of Research at a FTSE 100 company, feel free to think about someone else.) Do you understand each question? Do you have a clear opinion about each question? If not, challenge the team to re-word the question.

Better still, observe a small group of people when they complete the questionnaire. Ask them if there were any questions that they weren’t sure about. Use their replies to shape the questionnaire before launching it to a larger audience.

Tip #2: ask the right people

 Often, researchers will ask a sample of people that is broadly representative of the population of your country. The UK population, for example, is evenly split between men and women, and 19% of the population is aged 15 and below, 63% are aged between 16 and 64, and 18% are aged 65 or over. Your researchers might try to make sure that the group that they ask has a similar age and gender profile. (They’ll call this ‘national representation’, or ‘nat rep’ for short.)

But if you’re selling skate gear to teenagers, then you probably don’t care whether pensioners have heard of you.

So a good research team should take time to understand your strategies and your target markets, and will make sure that the research reflects this by asking only those people who matter to you.

Tip #3: use a lie-detector

We’re not seriously suggesting that you wire people up to a polygraph. But people don’t always reply to questions with a totally honest answer. So it’s important to structure the questions in a way that will help them to answer with a more truthful answer.

Often, when asked a question by a researcher, people will give an answer that they believe will make them look sensible and rational. That’s human nature. For example, someone might buy a BMW because they want people to think that they’re wealthy and successful. But they probably wouldn’t want to admit this to a researcher, so they might claim that they bought it because it’s well engineered.

But it’s really important to understand what people really think about the brand, and their honest motivations for engaging with, or avoiding the brand.

That’s why it’s often helpful to use the sort of questions that we’ve suggested at the end of this article. By encouraging people to think about the brand in an abstract sense (for example, by thinking about the brand as if it was a person), and by asking them how other people might feel about the brand – like their friends, or family – the research helps them to share what they really think, without risking making themselves feel judged.

Tip #4: Understand the difference between what people say and what they really think

This is a bit similar to tip #3, but it’s slightly different. It’s a great idea to attend any focus groups that your research team organises. That’s because it’s the only way to find out not just what people say, but also the way that they say it. Often, the way that a participant replies to a question will reveal that they’re thinking the precise opposite of what they are saying.

For example, we once attended a focus group in which some people from low-income families were asked about credit cards. One of the questions involved gold cards, which used to be awarded to customers as a way of making them feel that they were high-status.

One of the participants said that he had a gold card, but he really didn’t care about the colour of the card. If we had only read the transcript of the research, this would have told us that gold cards weren’t important to him. But he mentioned his gold card at least four or five times, which revealed that he was secretly proud of having been awarded it, and wanted the rest of the group to know that he owned one.

Tip #5: know the difference between qual vs quant, and the problems with both of them

There are two types of market research: one that produces numbers, and one that produces opinions. Your research team will talk about both types of research, so you should understand what they are and their strengths and weaknesses.

Qualitative research (qual, for short) allows respondents to express opinions, and should involve open questions, instead of questions that can be answered ‘yes’ or ‘no’. When it’s done well (see tip #3, above), it reveals underlying reasons for people’s opinions, and can deliver some genuinely helpful insights.

It generally uses small focus groups, in-depth interviews, and diary accounts.

Examples of qual questions include: “What’s your favourite thing about this sandwich shop?” “Why did you choose this make of car?” “If you had to list three things about this supermarket that annoy you, what would they be?”

Qualitative research is good for understanding how people feel about a brand, and for exploring their attitudes towards a topic. It’s bad at getting a reliable view from a broad target audience, because there might be a wide range of opinions within that target audience.

Quantitative research (quant, for short) is expressed in numbers. It uses surveys and questionnaires to get measurable data on a given topic. It can be conducted online, and can reach many people.

To be reliable, the questions need to be simple and easy to understand (see tip #1, above).

Examples of quant questions include: “On a scale of 1 to 5, how much do you agree with the statement ‘I would be happy for my children to drink this brand of fruit juice’?” “Which of the following advertisements do you remember seeing?” “Which of these three logos do you prefer?” “On a scale of 1 to 5, how much do you like this brand?”

Quantitative research is good at reaching large groups of people and for getting a quick snapshot for simple questions. It’s bad at finding out why people have their views, or what action a company should take as a result.

Tip #6: consider the dynamic within focus groups

It might not surprise you to hear that some men really like showing off in front of women.

So when recruiting people to participate in a focus group, it’s often worth considering having separate groups for men and women, or for people of similar ages. This can depend on the topic of the research: financial services, for example, is one area where some people feel under more pressure to give the ‘right’ answer (instead of what they really feel) when in a mixed-gender group.

Tip #7: ask both loyalists and rejecters

It’s important to make sure that the research includes a wide range of views. Your research team should make sure that they recruit people from your target audience who don’t like your brand, as well as those who do.

Finally: some questions the research should answer

To help you to shape your brand, and to check its health, you’ll need to know what your prospective customers really think about both your brand, and the competition. Here are some of the questions that the research should ask.

• If you could choose any brand, which brands would you choose to buy? What is it about those brands that you especially like?
• Which brands would you never buy? What is it about those brands that you don’t like?
• For each of these brands, describe the sort of person who would buy or use them.
• If the brand was a person, what sort of person would it be? What car does it drive? What newspaper does it read? What might it post on social media? Where does it go on holiday? What is its favourite drink? Would you like to go for a drink with this brand? Would you want to introduce the brand to your friends?
• What is it about the brand that made you give these answers?
• Here are some words that describe one of these brands. Which brand do you think they refer to? Why? What behaviours does the brand demonstrate that made you think that the words refer to that brand?
• Which of these brands would you want your friends to know that you use? Would you wear their logo on a T-shirt?

We specialise in working with our clients to help them to decide what market research they need, and we then deliver clear and accurate research that enables them to make great business decisions. If you’d like us to do this for you, please get in touch for a chat.