Qualitative Techniques ...

In-depth, one-to-one interviewing is a qualitative research technique that is useful for testing new product or service concepts or to gain a greater insight for subsequent quantitative studies.

The methodology is often used to avoid external influences on respondents' comments or where the target sample for the research is hard to access e.g. Senior Managers , Physicians, etc. In-depth interviewing is typically conducted either face-to-face or by telephone, usually at the respondent's office/place of work.

Depending on the chosen methodology, depth interviews present each respondent with the opportunity to talk for between 30 and 60 minutes, whereas in a focus group, individuals are limited to around 10-15 minutes each. Depths, however, do not benefit from the same 'dynamics' that are so important in discussion groups.

If a qualitative approach is required, Heawood has the necessary in-house experience and range of techniques to ensure your information needs and requirements are fully met.

Semiotics is about the creation of meaning. Human beings create meaning from everything they see. Take these glasses for instance:

In Britain most people would see a beer glass, a water tumbler, a wine glass, a champagne flute and a sherry goblet. In India most people might see the first glass as for lassi or Coke but might be baffled by some of the others.

Another example:

What does the apple in this painting signify? For many people their immediate answer would be “temptation” because they have been programmed by a Christian or Jewish upbringing.
However without this “cultural software” running in our brains, the answer might well have been “food” or “naturalness”.  Once we have attached a meaning to something we call this a “code” so for example we might see the champagne flute above and attach several codes to it as it can simultaneously mean celebration, luxury and ‘Frenchness’. Codes can be dominant i.e. influential, residual i.e. losing their power or emergent i.e. starting to become widespread and influential.

What semiotics does is look at problems from the “outside in” and try to draw conclusions about what most people believe images, sounds and word mean by looking at how things are in the culture surrounding the brand e.g. cleaning the house, weight management, alcoholic drinks, premium cars, images of female beauty, then at the competitive area and finally at the brand itself. It is incredibly useful for understanding the conventions in a market and the risks and rewards of breaking them.  The format combines initial desk research and a client workshop with all relevant stimuli. Consumers aren’t usually involved until ideas have been formulated. We have also developed our own “decoding” method so that even those new to semiotics can quickly become involved in the analysis.

It can be used to look at advertising, pack design or just to elicit new trends. For example if you want to launch a new nappy cream where most packaging is blue and inoffensive, how can you stand out without going so “off-code” that mothers will not even try you? It can also be useful for understanding what imagery can communicate certain types of human need. The need for status does not always have to be communicated by men on a golf course or women in sharp suits and glassy offices. It could be communicated simply by positioning one person in relation to another or implying something unique about setting or using a “status” colour.