Chuck Murphy and Maggie Bright take a close look at the mechanics of qualitative research today and why the demand for in-person work continues to surge. Rather than treating qualitative research as a nice-to-have extra, Chuck and Maggie zero in on the irreplaceable value of watching people express ideas in real time. Maggie highlights how brand teams are returning to focus group backrooms to capture the human context, nuance, and narrative depth that quantitative metrics don’t capture on their own. But running qualitative work today requires a total refresh of the old playbooks. Facility scarcity, changing participant defense mechanisms, longer recruiting runways, and hybrid client debriefs have fundamentally shifted how projects get executed. Chuck and Maggie trade practical tips on managing fieldwork logistics, engaging smart participants, and facilitating backroom discussions.
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Maggie Bright 00:06
Good morning, everyone. This is Maggie Bright. I'm here with Chuck Murphy, and we wanted to talk a little bit about the resurgence of qual that we have seen lately. And we were discussing yesterday kind of some macro trends going on in the market, and one of the things that we have really seen a lot of is a desire from our clients to do in-person qualitative research. And what's interesting about that is a lot has changed in the last couple of years. Kind of like the key players have changed as a result of I think mostly COVID. But wanted to chat with Chuck about what he was seeing and and hopefully give you all some tips on how to best approach in person qual in our kind of new normal environment. So with that, I will turn things over to Chuck to see if he has any hot takes on in person qual right now.
Chuck Murphy 01:00
Well, I mean, if you browse through market research podcasts, I think you'll have 19 different versions of AI, and then here's us doing qual, talking about qual the way it was done in 1952. I kind of like it.
Maggie Bright 01:12
Still has a lot of value. It, I mean, it, it especially in the world of AI, it makes even more sense now to be talking to consumers in person. So I think that even though we're sort of you know old school, we're on trend still. So
Chuck Murphy 01:27
yeah, no, I think I think it's totally true. I think that, and it's going to be. I think that's part of the reason we were talking yesterday. Is like it's not just now, but I think in the coming years we're going to see more and more of a kind of desire to see someone say it, see if then you know, and have that person be verified as real, because we're just going to get deluged by all this synthetic data and you know cheap quant data and all those sort of things. So you kind of that the need for authenticity, I think, is is going to get stronger and stronger. Yeah.
Maggie Bright 02:00
So so we we mentioned so we kind of talked about the reasons that it's coming back into vogue, or maybe it never was out of vogue. But we kind of talked about like COVID challenges, right? So we weren't able to do a lot of in-person qual during COVID. That was one of the things that happened, and now we're bouncing back. We've talked like fraud concerns, right? Is another reason that I think qual makes sense. There are other. I mean, we were as we were kind of like rattling off reasons that qual makes sense right now. The other things that we had kind of talked about is that it's kind of fun to get in the back room and talk to people again after many years of isolation, pre or during COVID and even post COVID to some extent. So that was like another real reason that it's you know it's been nice to get back into a back room. But were there other reasons that we had sort of chatted about where you're like, hey, this is why we're seeing so much qual coming back right now?
Chuck Murphy 02:52
Well, it's funny. I always I think about you know people. There's so many different kind of roles in this industry, right, and and if you think about someone who was, you know, 10 years ago, running a a facility in a city, and you know, a team of recruiters, and and you know, on the qual side of this business, like they've been through a roller coaster in the last decade, right? Because in the you know in the in the mid teens, whatever, you had the emergence of all these digital platforms, and you also had this huge rise in UX research because you know the techies were were doing so much research, and you had these these kind of new methods come in, and and I think a lot of facilities and qual researchers kind of shifted to to adapt to those methods, right? And and and they as well as some of them are just pure competition, right? Like you know, it's 100. If you're a traditional fall facility, you're all of a sudden competing with all these digital options, which were super compelling. I think when they first came out, right, because it was just it opened up all these new methodologies, and and I mean we've we've done a gazillion of these, and we love these methodologies. We do them every day, and they're fantastic. But I always think about this from the perspective of of a more traditional qual researcher. They had all of that come, and then they had COVID come, which basically shut them down for a solid two years. Right? I mean, it was for just nothing for a year. I still remember very vividly the first the first time we got out on the road post COVID, and it seemed like it had been forever, and it was so weird. No one came to the back room, and like you know, it was. And I think for those people, I mean, that's that is quite a thing to live through. Like, I feel really bad for you know, and they're great. That's a hard business. It was a hard business pre-COVID, right? Like, it's just you've got to. There's so many different staffing challenges, right? And having the right, you know, recruiting team and having a nice facility and a good location, and and and and then of course the the service things that come along on the day of and the scheduling issues. So it's it's crazy. It's it's really crazy for them. And not to go too deep into that, but I do think it's been. I think about them a lot over the last few years. And for the last year or so, it's. I feel like it took us a long time to become medical, but I still don't even feel like it's the same. Obviously, and it's hard. It's hard to tease apart like how much of that is just the change in behaviors from COVID versus we do have just amazing digital options now that people really like, and the digital options have some very clear benefits over more traditional methods, and I think when we decided to do this podcast, just to be clear, I don't think that we're only thinking about traditional call. I think all the digital options continue to grow as they have for the last 10 years, but I do think that there's the mix is going closer. The mix is including more traditional in-person stuff than it did two or three years ago, right? I think we all see that, and I think that that will continue to grow. And I think that's what started our conversation on this. Really, is like why is that happening? Yeah, absolutely. Go ahead.
Maggie Bright 05:58
We're so we're both so excited to talk about this. Go ahead and finish your thought, and then I'll I'll bring up.
Chuck Murphy 06:03
There's very few people in the world that are getting excited to talk about traditional qual research. I do think it's kind of fascinating. I feel like we saw this if you if you go back to like let's say 2013 or 2014, and you know everybody wanted to talk about big data, big data, big data, and then you saw this kind of pivot after a couple years of big data, big data, big data, big samples to like you know what, like we need to let's we forgot a little bit about some of the basic blocking and tackling that comes with just talking to people, you know whether it's at an IDI or at a focus group or whatever in person or going to that person's business or or home or whatever, and just like get back to like the basics of do we really understand what people are trying to tell us? And I think that data just continues, quant data continues to get easier and easier. And I'm not even talking about the synthetic stuff, but there's so much data now. The sample sizes have gotten so big. I think that it's going to continue to push people for very good reasons to like not forget these basics of like, do you understand why these results are seeing in a human way? Like, can you can you tell a story? And and I think that you're going to see a lot of that just in the face of this massive wall of data, but also very closely related to that are fraud concerns and authenticity concerns.
Maggie Bright 07:30
I would. I mean, I agree. I think that there is there is a real desire to understand the context in which the big quant studies come up with insights. So, what is it? You know, kind of what is the why behind the why of a lot of these data sets? And you really can't do that without actually talking directly to some of the consumers that we are actively working with from the quant platform perspective. And I think that I can't tell you how many times you know we talk about an insight or a fact or a statistics that's come out of quant, and then we put one verbatim next to it, and the light bulb goes off for our clients, and they suddenly are like, "Oh, now I get it. Now I sort of see what that you know statistic or that insight means, or how it comes to life, or what it sort of the the context or the shape it takes in relation to my product or my business or the strategy, and so I think that there's this huge. I think our clients are really missing that post, you know, coming out of COVID and all of that. And then the other thing that I think really happened is that since we couldn't talk to a lot of consumers for many years, the we lost some of the kind of like innovative information that was coming in, so that you know it was harder to design products and things like that because we weren't hearing as directly from consumers through a narrative versus just through a bunch of pieces of data, and so I think that's the other reason why people are so excited to talk to consumers again, whether it be in person or on a digital platform, it's just this idea that there's kind of a void right now in sort of understanding their perspective on things beyond just looking at like social media and stuff like that. Because we do get a lot of data from consumers, but in a more kind of curated way or a facilitated way, I guess is what I would say on that, yeah,
Chuck Murphy 09:21
and I think, I think in the you know it's I think we're kind of already there, but I think it's going to become stronger and stronger that there's going to be like really no such thing as a as a straight quant report, right? Everything is going
Maggie Bright 09:34
to be
Chuck Murphy 09:35
it's gotten so easy to to clip video, whether it's from a digital kind of qual methodology or a traditional one, we've gotten so comfortable with with video, and it's funny because I mean I feel like this is like one of those canned speeches that we give young analysts all the time, but we live in a bubble of people that are hyper comfortable with numbers and quants, quant kind of facts or data, and and we. Always have to remind ourselves that, like, oftentimes, like, you can present the most compelling, significant quant difference in the world, but if you go back to somebody a year later, they're going to remember what the video clip of the of the customer said, right? They're going to remember the way the person told the story. Like, oh, I was looking for this, and it was, you know, that that's I've had I had that experience in my own life. Like, I mean, I always joke with you that I can still remember certain customers from back in the banking days, which was 20 plus years ago. But I can still picture their face, and I know what they said. And I know if I told those stories to you, you also know the person I'm talking about. So it's there is that part of our brain that is is we are we we are attracted to people's stories, and so you know, using the quant to guide what the the key insights are, but then presenting those insights in a human way is is, I think, just going to become how every story gets told. Even more so because the technology to blend those two, and I think that's what people love about these digital platforms, right? I could click on a quote and see the person say it. There's something very compelling about that. It's like this is real data. This is a real person saying that. So,
Maggie Bright 11:03
absolutely, and the platforms have just gotten better and better too, in a lot of ways, whether it be in person or digitally. And so, it's it's really easy to empower clients with that data at their hands. You know, like they can be like, oh, that's important to me, or that's you know, they can even mark things that they want us to recall as we think about reporting and stuff like that. So I think it's a very empowering. A lot of these are really empowering tools. They
Chuck Murphy 11:28
are. Speaking of empowering, since we were talking about this, we put together some tips. Yes, and I think I always like to frame things in a positive. Let's learn and and have some rules of thumb. So I think we came up with nine of these, eight or nine of these tips that we've been talking to each other about and to our teams about. Should we dive right into those? And maybe the
Maggie Bright 11:50
only other thing I would say is I think that the the reason that we felt strongly about talking about kind of a bread and butter methodology and giving tips on it is because the players have changed since you know in the last four or five years, and so the dynamics of doing qualitative research are slightly different than they were pre-COVID or 10 years ago. And I think that's why it's important that we sort of refresh our understanding of kind of the mechanics of running good qualitative research. So, yes, do you want to start with tip number
Chuck Murphy 12:23
one? Yes,
Maggie Bright 12:24
in no particular order. And it's
Chuck Murphy 12:27
funny because the the first the first three tips. I it is it's good that you mentioned that the field has changed because that's kind of an important point that we've talked about offline. But I think it bears repeating is that many of these facilities and and these recruiter groups went out of business during COVID. A lot of them, and it's it's really sad because there's some people that were really good at this, and it does remind me a little bit of when we switched from from primarily phone to internet. We lost a lot of the really good, experienced methodologists that had traditionally been covered by phone rooms, which I know makes me sound like a dinosaur saying that, but I think that there is a similar thing that happens when you have these, you know, recruiters who have, you know, a lot of their salary is paid by the facility, but then the facility goes under. So, so the the game has changed. But in talking about that internally, we wanted to talk about some of the things we've been discovering in our own research, and wanted, you know, talk about some of the things we're telling our teams internally. The first one is pretty straightforward, but you really do have to give more lead time to recruiting now. There, there are fewer recruiters, and and they're, you know, it's it's funny. I was I was thinking about this this morning. That in case recruiters listen to this, I definitely don't want this to come across as negative in any way. Because, like I said, I have a lot of empathy for for how difficult these last five to six years have been on that side of the business. But the reality is that getting through even a moderately tough recruit now is much harder than it was pre-COVID. Like it's, you know, we've got we've got a few war stories that come come out that you know, but you just have to you have to get more lead time with recruiting. And I think
Maggie Bright 14:08
it's it's like a simple supply demand issue, right? There's a lot of demand to to get recruiting done for qualitative right now. There's less supply in terms of the recruiters who are doing it, and so they need more time. And I would say that our recruiting specifications have become increasingly specific. We're looking for more and more kind of, in some cases, not in all cases. Like we're we're looking for a, you know, we have a more defined criteria than ever before, which also adds time because the incidence becomes lower for the people we're searching for. So I, I think that this, in a world where every part of our research process has pretty much gotten faster over the last couple of years, this is one of the few exceptions that still takes. At least the same amount of time, if not more, but it's for good reason. It's you know like the the the things that they're having to do. You wouldn't necessarily want them to compress that timeline because they're you know if you really want to find these good quality participants, it takes time to find them and to vet them and to make sure that they're the right person we're looking for. So it's sort of a necessary timeline in most cases.
Chuck Murphy 15:25
Yeah, we've we've talked about this before, but you know their job is also harder now because you know we're going to come back to this point later. But the the respondents are more savvy and more protected than they ever have been. Yeah, they everyone screens phone calls. They screen emails, especially you know your under 30 crowd. There, it's very difficult to to to get past the is this fake kind of filter if you are like a cold outreach recruiter. More frustrating.
Maggie Bright 15:56
Yeah, most of us don't check voicemails anymore. So like you can't you know it's not like you can leave a voicemail and get a callback. I mean, it is a it's a really challenging dynamic that they're that they're dealing with.
Chuck Murphy 16:06
Yeah, 100%
Speaker 1 16:07
Yeah,
Chuck Murphy 16:07
100% And in addition to more of our lead time, this tip is related. But I think we also have to be careful that there there has to be a little bit more of like a I don't know if what the right word is here, but a gentle you know white glove kind of treatment of recruiters. Some of the kind of old school clients that try to bully on timelines, it's not going to work, and they'll just walk away. So you have to kind of change up. But by the way, we have never used that approach. We were always want people to love working with us. We're always nice, but there is undoubtedly that side of the industry of people who kind of come in and demand and
Maggie Bright 16:46
yeah, I mean, I think it has to be a very much more collaborative approach, and there needs to be very an honesty from both parties, right? Where you know, when we talk to a recruiter, hopefully, we're very upfront about this is who we need and how many of them, and the the time constraints we're working against, and the recruiter needs to be honest about I can and cannot, I can or cannot do that, or these are the challenges I think I'm going to face, or can you, you know, do you have any sort of flexibility on some of these things? And so, having like a really good kickoff call that is all in good faith is is extremely important. Not that it wasn't always, you know, not that it wasn't important before, but particularly now. So because we are trying to do so much more, so much faster, we need to be very transparent about what it is that we actually need to achieve, and our recruiters need to be very transparent about what they can achieve. So I think that's, and I think most are. I don't think you know. I feel like most recruiters are very upfront about what they can and cannot do, but it's it's imperative now because if you lose a week, then you know that's really detrimental to timelines. So I would I would totally agree with that. One of the kind of continuing down this path, one of the things that we've also noticed are we've been getting some really sad emails that facilities are closing now, and I think that's another thing, you know, another issue that we're having to deal with. There are fewer facilities if we're doing things in person, and so you really have to plan ahead a lot more than we did in the past. So that's kind of our third tip on this in this journey is kind of really, you know, long gone are the days where you could be like, "Oh, we can do two markets around this week. Now you really have to be very intentional about which markets you're picking and setting up timelines ahead of times to make sure that there's availability. I mean, I, you know, we recently were looking to do some stuff in Chicago, and one of our beloved facilities downtown there closed recently, and so we had to. We had a lot less to work with in terms of finding a location, and they were full. I mean, we were more than a month out, and a lot of these facilities were already booked with second and third holds on particular dates. So, like, it is highly necessary that you plan ahead with and and be specific. Like you can't just be vague and kind of be like, "Yeah, we'll do a market in the east and the west, and and hope that you can get your desired dates and times. So yeah,
Chuck Murphy 19:11
plan ahead and be and be flexible. I would say.
Maggie Bright 19:13
Yeah, yeah. I mean, and that is so different from where we were in 2023, 2024, where you could pick any market, any time, any day, and you might be the only client in the entire facility for the week. So
Chuck Murphy 19:27
yeah, that was so weird for a while there when you would go to those facilities and be the be the only room there. Right, it was really sad. It's really sad. It makes me sad.
Maggie Bright 19:36
Well, and I think too with that, and and this is sort of like not a tip but more a warning. I think as they begin to, as these facilities are at capacity more and more, and that obviously gives them freedom to start raising rates and and those types of things too. So I think you know, keeping an eye on what's going to happen to costs will be kind of the next wave of this. Like, are we going to see a big increase in things like facility? And and those types of pieces of the budget puzzle. So
Chuck Murphy 20:05
yeah, and there's I
Maggie Bright 20:06
don't think, but you know we'll we'll see.
Chuck Murphy 20:09
Yeah, and you can't be as as creative with with outside of the facility kind of methodologies, which is a bummer because we we loved that sort of thing. You know, like we're gonna all go do this or do that at a customer location or whatever. But so we have to be a little bit more traditional with with in person stuff. But you know, it's all it's all good. It's all good. Um, all right. Our next tip, you want me to do this?
Maggie Bright 20:39
Yes. Is
Chuck Murphy 20:39
you kind of have to have a plan in place to facilitate some of the there's a lot of especially the younger client side researchers just have less qual work experience than they would have had pre COVID, so you have to kind of help facilitate some of the stuff that goes along with the research. You know whether like what we would call the backroom, the debrief, all of that stuff. So much of, and we we've talked about this a lot over the years, is that so much of what makes in person qual great is all of the opportunities to collaborate with people in different roles or locations or whatever that comes along with the research, right? Opportunities to kind of brainstorm or debrief or you know kind of develop hypotheses that was just like I would argue was the most important part of qualitative research for many years, right? Like you know if you go back many years ago, you'd have all the agency people with the brand people with the researchers. You have you know these huge back rooms and everybody's kind of arguing through important issues in real time-that was almost the research was was really just dropping crumbs to start conversations, right? It was it was yeah,
Maggie Bright 21:51
and and like you learn more about the you know from our perspective, we would learn more about the business, right, and sort of the challenges that they were facing by having those perspectives, and hopefully the client is learning more about sort of like research and the methodologies, and you know, kind of how we conduct this process. And so there was like this nice symbiotic learning process happening that was somewhat tangential to the research itself. All obviously the research was important, like you said, but it like the those conversations. I felt like I really got to understand the context in which my businesses that I was working with were operating and why these questions mattered and things like that. So it was fascinating to get that context, and I love having that again as we do these in-person groups. I feel like I've learned a lot more about many of the brands we work with because we're going and doing more in-person qual, which is fantastic. But I agree with you. There's this because of COVID and because of the digital platform proliferation when it comes to qualitative, a lot not as many people have had the experience of being in a back room and experiencing in-person qual, and so there is a bit of a learning curve that has to happen. I will say, sort of simultaneously, though, there's a huge appetite from the clients that we work with to be there and to be like engaged in the process, which is really fun to see. I think there's like sort of a reinvigoration around in-person research, and so the the it's been fun to sort of remind people how and why we do this, and kind of explain the pieces of it, and help people learn the logistical ins and outs of it, which has been been great. But I think there is, you know, we there is definitely a learning process that has to happen, and I mean, I love being able to kind of walk people through their first backroom experience and explain how it happens, and I'm really excited when people have questions about it. And I think if we can all kind of set aside our egos and be open to learning, it'll create some really fun opportunities for us to to make in person qual in the back room like even more productive than it had been in the past because no one's coming in with like these preconceived notions of how it has to be, which is exciting. So I think I
Speaker 2 24:09
drew
Maggie Bright 24:09
off on a tangent there from your tip, but
Chuck Murphy 24:12
no, no, I think it's good. It's funny because you know to use the to use the traditional example, we like when you had really big backrooms when I was younger, you had agencies and brands together. There was usually like two big facilitators of conversations, right? There was usually the the account person from the agency, which is usually a talkative, outgoing, experienced person, you know. And then you had the the lead, you know, researcher from the brand. Those two were usually really outgoing facilitative types, right? And they would kind of, you know, usually like with each other, create a lot of talking. One of the things that happens now is, I think, when you, especially if you have less experienced, often you don't travel agency people anymore, which is is is a bummer. Sometimes you do, but it's it's a bummer that you don't most of the time. But you need someone that like is the facilitator for the group, and so if that person, if it's not clear, you know who that person is. It starts. I think there just needs to be more of an intentional plan of like, how are we going to kind of start these conversations, right? What are we going to do? And it it could be like little games you play. Like you know, the nice thing about having you know some of these less experienced clients is all the games seem new again. You know what I mean? You're like, hey, I've got an idea, and they're like, that's great. Post-it
Maggie Bright 25:18
notes everywhere is exciting.
Chuck Murphy 25:20
Yeah, it's kind of funny, but it does lead me to our second point on this. Is I think the the tip I would say is you have to have a clear articulated plan for how you how you're going to facilitate these debrief conversations. And I think the second tip would be the debriefs almost always now have to be hybrid because there's just an expectation, you know. It used to be back in the day if you said you couldn't travel, then then you were basically saying the rest of the team was going to handle this decision. Whereas now, if someone doesn't travel, they they expect to be included in all debriefs and and in the research, like, and they expect to be able to include anyone in that because the tools are there to do that so much more, like, and and it is those tools are great, right? You could, but you do have to have a plan for how you're going to do this. Like, if if something is hybrid, you know, you have to be careful about like if conversations start offline, are the online people being roped in or included in a natural way, or if there is some sort of a facilitated type or game or or exercise that it works in a hybrid nature, you know, and that's a little bit how meaning has become too. And it's it can be difficult because sometimes if everyone's in the same, if everyone's purely digital or purely in the room, it's a little bit easier sometimes. Whereas these hybrid conversations do require a little bit more planning, and somebody's usually at a disadvantage, right? If the majority of people are in the room, it's harder to be the online person, and vice versa.
Maggie Bright 26:45
Yeah, not only is there sort of the like advantage disadvantage component to it, there's also the the someone who might be remote may not have heard all of the respondent conversations either, so making sure that you are keeping the aperture of the conversation wide enough or narrow enough to truly reflect what you learned versus just hey I listened to this one group and this is what they said and let's go with that. I think that the the moderator of the debrief has to be really careful about making sure that there's the the entire body of research is discussed, not just the pieces of it that some people may have heard but other people didn't hear, and so I think there's also you have to have a plan for the for the debrief, but you also have to have someone who's truly the voice of what was heard in its holistic nature from participants, so that there's not sort of this tangential narrative that comes out from from the research, and I think that is a challenge a lot of times because what's great about you know qualitative research is it often brings together different you know different pieces of the organization or people at different levels within the organization, and so making sure that everyone sort of has a fair has a voice that is that represents sort of like how much of the knowledge they've been party to is important. And I think you know that's that's sometimes that's a hard job for a facilitator of a debrief to make sure is happening. And so I think that's also crucial to getting a good debrief going.
Chuck Murphy 28:20
100% 100%
Maggie Bright 28:22
That's.
Chuck Murphy 28:23
tools are more plentiful, and the job is harder.
Maggie Bright 28:26
It is, and it doesn't always go any faster either. So it's like it's.
Chuck Murphy 28:31
By the way, that's that's the bumper sticker that's on my car right now. Um, all right, our next tip. It's funny. So this one is is we you know we did hinted this earlier, but you have to be more creative in recruiting because respondents are more protective and and they're just you know they're a little bit I don't want to say paranoid but but rightfully skeptical of someone they don't know calling them saying hey you want to help us out with some research
Maggie Bright 29:00
yeah and there's this kind of duality to that too, because they're more protective of sort of their time and you know being contacted and those types of things. But we know more and more about people all the time because they're sharing it in different platforms. So in some ways, it's like easier to locate people, but it's harder to get them to actually talk to you, and so I think there's it's it's interesting as I think we're going to see. And let me know if you disagree with this. More of a well, all the traditional methods will still be there for recruitment, but there is going to have to be some, for lack of a better word, like scrappiness to how we recruit people now, so that we can sort of not in a not in a scandalous way, but like get through their the blockades they've put up, and and you know make sure that we're like credible people trying to get in touch with them. It might not be like we might not be able to just call people or email people anymore. We're going to have to get more creative about how we solicit their engagement with. We certainly
Chuck Murphy 30:00
cannot. Yes, as a psychologist would say, they're well defended. Yeah, well defended person. You have to be creative about getting inside.
Maggie Bright 30:07
Yeah, we've always said that like our B 2b recruits are well defended, but now it's like the B 2c recruiter, like those participants are also well defended. So like everyone's well defended now. Well,
Chuck Murphy 30:17
and I think what we thought was well defended in the B 2b world 10 years ago is now hyper. That right, it used to just be you had to you know get by something, yeah. And now it's now it's 10 times harder than that. So it is, you definitely have to be creative with recruiting. And there's so you know this is where an area we spend so much time and effort on is like how can we kind of make ourselves stand out, and and and you know I think big part of the early game is proving you're trustworthy, you're credible. You're not some. It's not a scam. Yeah,
Maggie Bright 30:46
absolutely. And I mean, I think too, like there's an expectation of how much things should be incentivized now, and so like that's a big. You know, it'll be interesting to see like where incentives sort of land. You know, in terms of how much people are are expecting to be paid for for research too. That's another
Chuck Murphy 31:03
thing to me that like it's. I feel like we've I had this conversation with somebody else a couple weeks ago. The incentive is not primarily the problem. It's the the because it's it's more that like is this a real offer? Like you get just so much fake, you get so many fake emails and and fake calls that it just your your your instinct is to just be like scam and not even listen, right? And it's and I think that's one of the the things that is harder. It's not so much that hey, they're you know because oftentimes, especially these BB worlds, we're offering a pretty outstanding incentive because it's so hard to to recruit. Yeah,
Maggie Bright 31:37
that's fair.
Chuck Murphy 31:38
But I think most it's it's that's less of a problem. You mentioned something that kind of is a you know a preview of our next tip, which is you've got a lot more targeting options now than you did in the past. There is so much information out there, which you just said. So I think an excellent tip is is again be creative in how you how you use those, how you look for those those options, and and you know pre qualify someone before you do go through that complicated game of getting them to trust you.
Maggie Bright 32:04
Yeah, I would. I mean, I think that we you're doing yourself a disservice if you don't spend some time like researching more about where your participants are likely to be, or you know, like what tools can you use to help you find them in a faster, more targeted way. And it's not. I mean, it's a lot of it is desk research, right? It's not like you have to have sophisticated tools necessarily to to target people better. It's just you have to be creative in how you go about finding them, and you don't need special skills for that. You just need to sit down and be creative and insightful and intuitive. And I think that is that will help with some of these barriers we're talking about in terms of you know getting getting past some of the defense mechanisms, helping with timelines and those types of things. But it requires a little more work on the upfront for the researchers, which is I don't think that's a bad thing. It's just a different thing than than what it was in the past. Long gone are the days where you just write a standard screener and send it off into the world, and you know, a week and a half later, you get back all your participants. Like it just doesn't work that way anymore, and and for good reason, I think. But I think that kind of brings us to our next one, which is like respondents are so savvy now. Participants are extremely savvy, and that can be, you know, it can be can make recruiting harder, but it can actually make the research more interesting if you sort of engage participants and consumers in the in a process of allowing them to help you, because you don't, you know, it used to be, and I always laugh about how the you know it was you had to be very careful about being in the back room and being quiet and not letting anyone know you were there and dressing really inconspicuously so that you know no one could figure anything out about who the clients were and you know the respondents were like kept in the dark and I don't really think that that's the sort of the mood of how we operate in qualitative anymore, because a most participants understand what's happening and can figure out things really quickly. But I also don't know that it's it's not beneficial anymore to keep things so mysterious, because participants can really help you much more if they're kind of involved in the conversation on a deeper level, so you know, I think that there's it. It used to be that there were like trigger words that risk participants would say in a group, and you'd be like, "Oh no, they know too much, or you know, they just use the word, you know, I can't even think of one now, but like media mix or something. And now it's like that's not really you know one of those things that is a red flag as much anymore as it used to be because consumers are just paying attention to what's going on around them.
Chuck Murphy 34:46
Yeah, I kind of think of this like like in Hollywood terms. There for years there was a rule that you can't break the fourth wall, like you pretended that it wasn't there, and then certain movies started to do it, you know, and TV shows. And I think it's a little bit like that. Is and we talk about this also in terms of hiring and interviewing. Now it's just amazing how much some younger people know about our field, and for so long nobody understood it, and now they've been knowing a lot more. And that's true with response to. I was trying to think of the way you formulate the tip for this, though, because it's like the fourth wall example. It's not like you necessarily have to to break it in any way, but you can. You have permission to, especially if the respondent gives you permission first. And I think that's kind of the way I would word the tip. Is like there are options now if someone shows that they're pretty savvy to let them answer as a brand person. Or you know, people are some some respondents now are really savvy about which seat they they can imagine sitting in, right? Like, if I was a brand, I would do this, or if I was advertising, I would do this. And it's actually an interesting tool. I don't think it's something that you would try to put respondents into if they didn't elect that seat, so to speak. And I think really savvy moderators have always done this. They've always kind of been good at like, wow, this person seems to know more than your average bear. Go ahead, like you know. Let's see, and and we did. We used to. It's funny. I've always been a fan of of you know having exercises in your back pocket to let let respondents do this and take on more responsibility. But there's there's currently a shift now because of you know media depictions or I don't know exactly what it is, but there just is way more information out there about about researchers, what they're trying to accomplish, and there's way more. I mean, we talk about this a lot when we talk about generational research in terms of marketing to young kids. Like they're just way more savvy about how the world works and what you know. Even something like what what's Instagram trying to do with its feed, right? Like what you know they understand what the business's objectives are, and they that doesn't mean that they won't utilize those benefits if if they are a benefit to them, but they're they're just much more savvy now. You can't just throw a benefit on a package and have them believe you. And so I think that's true in research too. Is like if you have someone that's pretty savvy, you have permission. I think more so now to I would say we would give we would recommend giving yourself permission to to go ahead and let it go down that path sometimes, and tell them it's it's just more of a sophisticated world now. So that I think your final tip, unless you could think of another.
Maggie Bright 37:14
I know. Should should we do a quick recap of them? So give your give your recruiters more lead time so that they can actually get you a good recruit and be nice to them because they are under a lot of pressure right now. Plan ahead for your locations because there are fewer of them and you really need to be smart about your planning. Help educate newer clients as they start to learn about this process, be smart and thoughtful about how you're going to do debriefs to make sure you can bridge the world of in-person and hybrid. Our respondents are more protected, so be really creative potentially about how you reach them. Use the targeting options that are available to your advantage, and then let your respondents help you if they are particularly savvy or can see themselves in novel and creative seats or positions. I think I hit them all. Did I? Yeah, we're gonna
Chuck Murphy 38:10
we're gonna clip that into a 22nd Instagram post. There you go. Here's Maggie's. Actually, you
Maggie Bright 38:15
don't even need to watch the first 35 minutes of this podcast. Watch those 440 seconds and be done. So there we go for efficiency.
Chuck Murphy 38:24
Somebody's going to be like Chat GPT. Summarize for me. TLDR.
Maggie Bright 38:28
Right. I love it. I love
Chuck Murphy 38:30
it. I
Maggie Bright 38:30
think most of my conversation should be summarized by Chat GPT. I think the all the people around me would get through life more efficiently and faster.
Chuck Murphy 38:39
You know the the last thing I'll say about this, the great, the great thing about you know traditional qual coming back is there's a whole new generation of people being introduced to the plush toys and the snacks that that reward you for your long trip through Chicago.
Maggie Bright 38:52
I will tell you, I was I'm a fan of Fieldworks, but I was there recently, and they don't make the little I don't think they make new squishies anymore, so they are sort of like a. I could be wrong. So someone from Fieldworks is is watching, and that is not. I think
Chuck Murphy 39:07
you're wrong. I think that was your location. By the way, Fieldworks. I believe
Maggie Bright 39:10
they're still around. They have them in abundance, but I don't think they're like creating new ones.
Chuck Murphy 39:15
Oh, you think they're all just they're re? They're like legacy. Yeah, I could
Maggie Bright 39:19
be wrong. Don't quote me.
Chuck Murphy 39:22
Okay, and again, fieldwork. If you want to sponsor us, just let us
Maggie Bright 39:28
know. Oh, all right.
Chuck Murphy 39:29
Well, thanks for your time. This was fun. All
Maggie Bright 39:31
right. Bye, everyone.