Avatars of reason reduces to mere footnotes By Prof Dr Sohail ansari
“Bad news sells papers. It also sells market
research.” -Professor Byron Sharp
A synthesis of truth
is not possible undertaking
· All philosophies from
their exempt positions as the avatars of reason in history have reduced to mere
footnotes. The exclusive reliance of philosophers on human intellect despite
knowing that it does not know itself was bound to lead all into the impasse
from which they found a way out only by declaring: ‘ All philosophies have their share of truth
along with their errors, the proportion varying with the social vantage point
from which each is propounded. Absolute truth is though unattainable, it still
be approximated through a synthesis of the promising perspectives’. How can one
conceivably distinguish between truth and errors so that ‘a synthesis’ of truth
can be possible undertaking because the distinction entails the use of criteria
to become possible and that criteria would no less be tainted by the same
source: fallible human judgment.
Research Tools / Quantitative
Research
Tools
"Research
is a process where you can spend a lot of money and come up with zero. Isurus
guides me quickly through the key decisions, helps me avoid the pitfalls, and
makes sure I walk away with high-value implications."
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Quantitative research
answers the “how many” questions and provides results that can be projected
onto the broader population with statistical confidence. It is used for a range
of research objectives, including market sizing, product development, messaging
testing and others. Quantitative research uses structured surveys with
pre-defined response options (ratings, rankings, multiple-response, etc), that
are administered to a representative sample of the target audience.
Quantitative surveys are typically administered either by telephone or online
in the US; in-person surveys are more common in some regions of the world.
Mobile surveys are an emerging methodology.
Quantitative research tools:
·
Telephone Surveys
·
Online Surveys
·
In-person Surveys
·
Mobile Surveys
·
Analytical techniques
Telephone surveys
Telephone surveys are administered by
trained market research interviewers working under strict quality control
guidelines. Telephone data collection remains the most effective means of
researching most B2B audiences in the US and other developed markets; list
sources and response rates for online surveys are typically not sufficient to
support a study with a narrowly defined B2B target audience (e.g., Finance
Directors/VPs in large enterprises). Telephone surveys are often augmented with
a website to enable the interviewer to show the respondents
visual stimuli (e.g., ad concepts, product concepts, etc.) during the course of
the survey.
Online surveys
Online surveys are used effectively
with audiences like small businesses, customers or consumers. With online
surveys, respondents are emailed a link to take a self-administered survey. The
online platform offers a range of possibilities for showing respondents product
or advertising concepts, value propositions, and other visual stimuli.
Respondents to online surveys are sourced from online market research panels,
publication subscriber lists, and client’s internal databases.
In-person surveys
Although not commonly used in North
America and Europe, in-person surveys are often the only viable option for
conducting surveys with B2B audiences in the Middle East, Latin America and
some parts of Asia. The in-person survey shows respect for the respondent, and
is often a more effective way to engage their attention than a telephone or
online survey.
Mobile surveys
Mobile market research is an emerging
methodology that is currently used in a very small percentage of all market
research studies. As of today, mobile surveys are simply a short survey
administered through a mobile device interface; respondents are still recruited
by email or phone and simply access the survey on their mobile device. Mobile
surveys are used to provide a more convenient option for the respondent to
participate or to engage respondents at the point of experience.
Analytical techniques
When appropriate Isurus uses
specialized techniques to analyze and interpret quantitative data. Examples
include conjoint and discrete choice analysis, cluster analysis, factor
analysis, regression, and the Van Westendorp Price Sensitivity Meter. We apply
our statistical knowledge judiciously by focusing on results that are not only
statistically meaningful, but also important from a management and marketing
perspective.Copyright © 1999-2015. All Rights Reserved, Isurus Market Research
A structured interview
(also known as a standardized interview or a researcher-administered survey) is a quantitative research method commonly
employed insurvey research. The aim of
this approach is to ensure that each interview is presented with exactly the
same questions in the same order.
At the heart of discrete choice modeling is the
little-known process of experimentation. The ability of trade-off based
modeling to make reasoned predictions of market behavior is due to its
foundation in experimental design. Why is this important? It allows us the
capacity to estimate the importance of each feature, or attribute, without
having to expose respondents to all possible combinations of features and
levels. Ultimately, Discrete Choice Model allows to understand what’s important in
consumer decision-making process. This saves time. Money and
frustration.
Discrete
Choice Modeling
Without a properly designed experiment, the researcher
would have to create a project that accounted for all possible combinations of
attributes and levels. Attributes, or features, are the key variables which
describe the product or service .This could be price, color, size, number of
speakers, length of contract, etc. In any discrete choice modeling exercise, we
should limit the attribute list to those believed to be most critical to the
consumer. This insight can be acquired from prior to the survey or qualitative
research and is important to know in order to find out your customer
preferences.
Underneath each attribute are levels. For example, for price we
may be considering $8.99, $9.99 and $10.99. Therefore the price attribute has
three levels. To return to a pizza example, if we are testing combinations of
sauce, crust, amount of cheese, type of cheese, toppings and price then we have
six attributes, each with a limited number of levels. Suppose we have the
following:
- Crust
– thin, pan, thick
- Sauce
– marinara, spicy or alfredo
- Topping
– pepperoni, meat lovers or veggie
- Cheese
– mozzarella, mixed cheeses
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