Qualitative marketing research

The in-depth interview or intensive interview is a tool of psychotherapy, the empirical social research and market research in the form of a non-directive, qualitative personal interview, which is to capture all important viewpoints and opinions of the interviewed person. In-depth interviews can last an hour or more. An attempt is made also to determine motives and meaning structuring, are not aware of the person concerned. The scientific- theoretical approach refers on this point to psychoanalysis.

Basic principle

The adoption of the in-depth interview is that respondents have deeper or implicit contents of consciousness that guide their actions and thinking, without that it is the respondents readily possible to articulate these implicit consciousness content. Through this basic principle, the in-depth interview lined up methodically in those of the partially structured methods, in which the stimuli are fixed, but the stories of the respondents to be adjusted in their sequence and depth. This orientation to the respondents is absolutely necessary to produce everyday proximity and familiarity with it in the interview situation. This facilitates the respondents admitting to the interview.

Mark

Molding

The depth interview is one of the most intense and most productive types of surveys. Depending on the problem, it may be geared more towards deep psychological or more theme-focused.

A psychodynamic approach is useful when a basic understanding of the topic is required. Here are the topics of the interviews are roughly given, their order arises only in the course of the conversation. The conversation is very open and apparent digressions can provide important information, such as a topic is perceived and the context in which it stands. Special survey techniques such as recap, mirrors, associative and projective methods, laddering technique or the picking up of keywords can bring the volunteers to tell stories and reveal their emotions.

If you no longer want to be focused on the basics, but to specific questions, the conversation can be more direktiv ( controlling ) and structured the guide more. In practice, this ethnographic interviews have proved successful.

Between deep psychological and theme-centered approach of course there are gradations and modifications. After Salcher (1995 ), therefore, divide the forms of in-depth interviews in three main forms:

In the first case, the in-depth interview of a survey is hardly distinguishable and lost much of its qualitative function. In the latter case, one obtains even a fulness quality recyclable material, but at the expense of comparability of the individual interviews, as they are structured by the respondents and not by the interviewer.

In the semi-structured guideline - oriented in-depth interview (Structured depth interview) is the balance between some predetermined questions and telling omission, ie searched the flexible responsiveness to non- anticipated statements of the interviewees in order to cover both reach and depth of the topic and to obtain diverse and similar material. Characterized this interview form is the fact that guideline complexes are defined that correspond to the topics, and that this " openly formulated questions," partly keywords or precise articulation of items included, their sequence and weighting is not fixed, but with the respondents in the interview together developed be. The flexibility of this method of analysis makes it possible to illuminate spontaneous ideas and seemingly outlandish ideas in connection with the survey item on their hidden meaning.

Areas of application

Application areas of this interview technique are according to their theoretical origin of all those subject areas in which latent personality structures, motivations and even pathological, neurotic behaviors or personalities take center stage. This technique was founded by the interview method of Sigmund Freud and were in different areas (eg youth research, psychotherapy, however, especially in market research ) are used.

Psychotherapy

Open calls are part of any psychotherapy ( where the term in-depth interview is mainly assigned only to the deep psychological methods). You can at first and progress consultation to the medical history, serve to clarify the motivation for treatment, development of a therapeutic relationship, findings and diagnostic survey and provide information to the patient.

Social Research

Depth interviews are used to identify motifs and individual experiences of the subjects and to detect rare or deviating cases. Disadvantages are next to the high temporal and personal effort, the sensitivity to examiner -dependent distortions. Researchers can increase their pre-scientific understanding, that generate hypotheses, but standardized surveys are better suited to the final hypothesis test. Socialization and development of young people can be better recorded in part with qualitative observations and in-depth interviews with a quantitative method.

Market research

The qualitative in-depth interview is a core instrument of psychological market research (market psychology) for the exploration of unknown causes and contexts. It is especially ideal for more sensitive topics or to establish " pre-conscious content" as well as to clarify the individual understanding. The personality of the individual respondents is not analyzed, but only the target group.

Caring questions are ...

• ... the behavior of consumers (or customers, employees, Internet users etc. ) or complex emotional and motivational influences on their buying and consumption behavior,
• Impact analyzes ... of advertising media and other means of communication (eg, image campaigns, strong emotional array of subjects or analysis of imagery )
• ... Brand and corporate image (brand core analysis),
• Character ..., Reason Why, and unique selling proposition of products and services.
• ... Customer satisfaction studies.

The experienced interviewer can explore even embarrassing, difficult to verbalize or unconscious contents of experience and rationalization, socially desirable or banal superficial answers hinterfragen.Man gets in the logs full of ideas and lines of reasoning, the complex psychological relationships - eg in the development of brand preferences - represent good. However, the requirements to the interviewers are very high, and implementation and evaluation are disproportionately expensive. Sometimes a transcription is required. The hermeneutic interpretation as the evaluation process is very time-consuming.

Literature and References

• Kepper, G. ( 1996). Qualitative Market Research: Methods, applications and assessment criteria. Wiesbaden, German University Publishing GmbH. ISBN 3824402920
• LAMNEK, S. ( 1995). Qualitative Social Research, Volume 2: Methods and techniques. Weinheim, Psychology Press. ISBN 3621277706
• Mayring, P. ( 2002). Introduction to qualitative social research. Weinheim and Basel, Beltz Verlag. ISBN 3407252528
• Naderer, Gabriele & Balzer, Eva (2007). Qualitative Research in Theory and Practice: Fundamentals, Methods and Applications. Gabler. ISBN 3834902446
• Reinders, H. ( 2005). Qualitative interviews with young people lead: A Guide. Oldenbourg Verlag, Munich. ISBN 3486578375
• Salcher, E. F. & Hoffelt, P. ( 1995). Psychological research. Berlin, de Gruyter. ISBN 3110125633