Do you act the same in a meeting with a bunch of strangers as you act when you’re at home with family or friends? Of course not.
That’s because we’ve been socialized to act one way in public and another in private. (If you wear a suit and tie while reading the Sunday paper, or put your bare feet up on a table during a department-wide presentation, you’re an exception!)
In public, we act in ways that fit into the norm and say things that are often colored with politeness, or perhaps paints a picture of how we want others to perceive us – or at least moderated by a sense of what we’re expected to say. Removed from those situations, the “real” you might be less structured in how you act and more direct and candid in what you say.
The fact that we act different ways according to what we think is expected of us — and whether we are in public or private – is the defining advantage of Qualvu’s research approach.
Instead of getting people together in a focus group to react to a concept or product, we get them to react to a product or concept in their own homes, on their own schedules, in their own way. When we were trying to find out how people used grooming products, we didn’t ask them to tell us in a meeting; we asked to show us as they were actually using the products in their bathrooms. When we wanted to learn about people’s opinions of club stores, we didn’t ask them to share those opinions with strangers around a conference table; we asked them to take their web cams along when they went shopping.
What we got was “real you” information instead of information that was filtered through societal expectations of public speech and behavior. The quality of the research was in direct proportion to the candor of the panelists, and in fact, we found that it wasn’t always even what people say - it was what they do that drives the most striking insights. The information was, simply, much closer to the truth — and truth is the only legitimate foundation for any successful marketing.
