DATA COLLECTION

METHODOLOGY
Rent Your Fashion
Questions for further Exploration
• What are the key concerns that the consumers had against using a
clothes rental service?
• What type of goods or/and what occasion would they like to use
service for?
• How much were the consumers willing to pay for different product
categories?
• What should be the rental duration?
• What is the nature of service they would prefer? Online/offline; open
for all/members only and why?
• Would they like to buy insurance cover and how much are they willing
to pay?
• Would they agree to pay a security deposit? How much?
• How frequently would they use such a service for different product
types?
• Would they like a membership/loyalty programme that offers
discounts?
• Anything else they wish to talk about this service
Focus Group Discussion
• I ask about 10 people to sit a room.
• I make a discussion guide
• I ask them to start the discussion and
I moderate their group discussion
• These people are more or less
homogeneous w.r.t demographics and
socioeconomic characteristics
• They discuss for about 1.5 hours
• I keep giving topics/questions after
every 5-7 minutes, depending on the
value that I am getting from
discussion on previous topic
• I recorded the whole discussion
• More similar discussions held
FOCUS GROUPS
Focus Group Use
• Addressing Issues
• Understanding consumer’s perceptions, preferences, behaviour
concerning a product
• Obtaining impressions of new product concepts
• Generating new ideas about older products
• Securing price impressions
• Obtaining preliminary consumer reaction to specific marketing
programs
• Methodological applications
• Define a problem more precisely
• Generate alternate courses of action
• Developing an approach to a problem
• Obtaining information helpful in structuring consumer questionnaires
• Generating hypotheses that can be tested quantitatively
• Interpreting previously obtained quantitative results
Key Qualifications of Focus Group
Moderators
• Gentle & Disciplined
• Permissive yet maintaining group cordiality
• Stimulate Involvement
• Encourage Specificity in responses
• Encourage universal Participation
• Improvise on plan based on group dynamics
• Sensitivity towards intellectual & emotional
communication
Variations in Focus Groups
• Two-way focus groups
• Dual-moderation
• Dueling-moderators
• Involving Client-participants
• Telesession groups – conference calls
• Online focus groups
Focus Groups
Advantages Disadvantages
• Synergism
• Snowballing • Misuse
• Stimulation • Misjudge
• Security • Moderation
• Spontaneity • Messy
• Serendipity • Misrepresentation
• Specialization
• Scientific scrutiny
• Structure
• Speed
Exercise
• Indian Railways wants to improve the products/services it
provide to the travellers.
Discussion Guide
• Introduction to FGD, moderator and members
• Warm up
• Best thing about travelling in train
• Worst thing
• Train travel
• How many times you travel in train in a month?
• Are there some trains/routes you travel often?
• What if there are no trains on that route?
• What could be alternatives to train travel?
• Why people prefer to travel in trains ?(Explore)
• Products/Services in train
• List of all the products you can think of
• List of services you can think of
• Which products/services you use regularly and why?
• Desired
• Are there any additional products/services you wish the train have and why?
(Explore)
• Are there any products/services you wish to change/modify and why? (Explore)
Discussion Guide
• Critical Few
• Top 3 products/services which you consider to be most important
• What would be three products/services for which you would be
wiling to pay more fare?
• Trigger for alternatives
• What do you think are some of the reasons that people would not
like to travel via train?
• Think Freely and creatively
• Thank you
Depth Interviews
• If the respondents are to be interviewed individually, how shall I do that?
• I don’t have much information about problems or hypotheses
• I don’t have a structured interview guide
• Shall I start with a general question “How do you feel about buying rented clothes?”
• I encourage the respondent to talk freely about his/her attitude towards wearing rented
clothes.
• Subsequent direction of the interview is determined by respondent’s initial reply and I then
further probe for elaborations
• Suppose he/she says don’t like to wear rented clothes, what would be follow up question?

This is called “DEPTH INTERVIEW”

• Different from survey interviews
• Goal is to deeply explore the respondent's point of view, feelings and perspectives
• Open-ended Questions
• Seek understanding and interpretation
• Conversational
• Stages for Conducting Depth Interview:
• Thematizing
• Designing
• Interviewing
• Transcribing
• Analyzing
• Verifying
• Reporting
Depth Interviews- Techniques
Suppose we have to investigate attitude towards Indian airlines among middle managers
of a company. Let’s see how can we apply different techniques:
st
1 : We initiate by probing about different attributes of the airlines such as wide seats, big
business class area, food quality, timing etc

Here is a series of probing questions example:

“Why do you like wide seats in an airplane?”
R: “It makes me comfortable.”
I: “Why is it important to be comfortable?”
R: “I can accomplish more.”
I: “Why is important that you can accomplish more?”
R: “I feel good about myself.”

Implication: Wide seats may relate to self-esteem!

Then what???

This process is called “Laddering”

Laddering
• a tailored interviewing format using primarily a series of
directed probes, typified by the “Why is that important to
you?” question
• used to develop an understanding of how consumers
translate the attributes of products into meaningful associ-
ations with respect to self
• determines sets of linkages between the key perceptual
elements across the range of attributes (A),
consequences (C), and values (V)
• These associations are called Ladders
Exercise
• Preference for a Fat free snacks chip
• Drinking beer with friends at a party in the weekend
• Buying rented clothes
2nd Technique
• Respondents were questioned about fantasies, work
lives, social lives to identify hidden life issues
• Responses included interest in Formula one racing, BMW
car, a house on a beach
• This could an indication that the set of respondents are
more growth oriented, want high status
• This technique is called “Hidden Issue Questioning”
3rd Technique
• Respondents are asked “What would happen if you won’t
be able to use planes?”
• Response: I would have to rely on e-mail, letters,
telephone calls
• Implication:
• The principal purpose of planes for managers is
communication
• Advertising can be made more effective
• This technique is called “SYMBOLIC ANALYSIS”
Projective Techniques
• Elicitingdeep-seated feelings/opinions by
enabling the respondents to project
themselves into unstructured situations.
• Word Association
• Sentence Completion
• Role playing
• Story telling with pictures
… and several others
Projective Techniques
• Words that come to top of mind when you hear “rented
clothes”
• Show Pictures
• Complete Sentences
Examples for Exercises
• A cosmetics firm would like to increase its penetration of
the female student market. Consider yourself as the hired
consultant to obtain an understanding and preliminary
insights into attitudes, purchases and use by female
students. Conduct in depth interviews.

• The campus swimming club is trying to determine why

more students do not use its facilities. Conduct focus
groups to determine what could be done to attract more
students to the swimming club. Also generate relevant
hypotheses based on focus group results.
Questionnaire Survey
Possible questions
• Introduction
• Screener Questions (if any)
• Type of products (aided or unaided, more than one, additional)
• Attributes from the clothes rental service (Ratings, rankings, or ordinal scale)
Pick type of products:
Willingness to buy (Scale, Yes/no)
Attributes
Brand types (pick, or rank)
Willingness to pay (Amount, %age of MRP, Absolute, Range)
Accessories along with rental clothes (Unaided, aided)
Rent charges for accssories (yes/no, how much)
Refundable security deposit (Yes/no, how much)
How would you pay security
Insurance service for rented clothes (Yes/No, How much)
Times a year use the service
Membership/Loyalty Programme (Yes/No)
Additional services that you want (Aided/unaided)
Sampling
• Specific Population of interest (May be):
• Indians
• People from all ages
• Different Professions
• Different Income Groups
• Different Life Cycle stages
• Limited time, money
• Better to collect information from smaller (but hopefully
representative) collection of consumers
• This is called “Sampling”
“A sample is correct if randomly built”
Different types of Samples
• Simple random sample
• Systematic sample
• Stratified sample
• Cluster sample
• Proportional sample
Simple Random Sample
1. Sameer 19 Mike

• “Choosing respondents out of a hat”

2. Rajesh 20 Rohit
3. Suresh 21 Anil
4. Prem 22 Deepa
• Principle 5.
6.
Anju
Maria
23
24
Shweta
Vijay

– Equal chance/probability of each 7.

8.
Gourav
Ravi
25
26
Swati
Arti
9. Sanjeev 27 Anuj
person being selected 10. Atul 28 Ritesh
11. Savita 29 Ramesh

• Advantages
12. Shakti 30 Noor
13. Mansi 31 Abdul
14. Sanjeev 32 Anand
– Simple 15.
16.
Aman
Amit
33
34
Naresh
Bipin
17. Vikas 35 Tony
• Disadvantages 18. Hema 36 Preeti

– Need complete list of representative people

– Consumers may be scattered and
poorly accessible
– Heterogeneous population
 important minorities might
not be taken into account
Systematic Sample
1. Sameer 19 Mike

• Systematically selects every

2. Rajesh 20 Rohit
3. Suresh 21 Anil
4. Prem 22 Deepa
5. Anju 23 Shweta

nth person 6.
7.
8.
Maria
Gourav
Ravi
24
25
26
Vijay
Swati
Arti
9. Sanjeev 27 Anuj

• E.g. every 5th respondent we meet 10.

11.
Atul
Savita
28
29
Ritesh
Ramesh
12. Shakti 30 Noor
13. Mansi 31 Abdul

• Advantages 14.
15.
Sanjeev
Aman
32
33
Anand
Naresh
16. Amit 34 Bipin
17. Vikas 35 Tony
– Ensures representativity across people 18. Hema 36 Preeti

– Easy to implement

• Disadvantages
– Need complete list of people
– Periodicity-underlying pattern may be a problem
(characteristics occurring at regular intervals)
Stratified Sample
• There may be 60 % male with household income
> 10 Lakh and 40% female and we need to
approach 1% of total people. We may use the
following method:
Area Population Proportion Sample size Sampling Fraction

Male 18000 60% 300 x 0.6 = 180 1%

Female 12000 40% 300 x 0.4 = 120 1%

Total 30000 300

• A stratified sample assures a random sample, however the

sample has equal numbers within a particular characteristic.
Cluster Sample
• Target population is first divided into mutually exclusive
and collectively exhaustive clusters. Then random sample
of clusters is selected.
• A cluster sample is often easier and
less costly, but generalizability is
limited.
• Cluster members may be more alike
than those in another cluster
Question
• Suppose we have six schools with populations of 150,
180, 200, 220, 260, and 490 students respectively (total
1500 students), and we want to use student population as
the basis for a sample of size 100.
• How can the different sampling techniques applied?
Non Probability Sampling
• Convenience Sampling
• Judgemental Sampling
• Quota Sampling
• Snowball Sampling
Scales of Measurement
• Numbers are no more than labels used solely
Nominal to identify different categories of responses

Ordinal • Numbers possess the property of rank order

Interval • Differences between the scale values can be

meaningfully interpreted. Zero is arbitrary

• Ratios of numbers on these scales have

Ratio meaningful interpretations. Zero is absolute
An Example
• Suppose there was an 100 mts race in a school. The
three positions can be represented differently using four
scales:

Chest Numbers of 3 10 Nominal

Runners 2
Rank Order of First Second Ordinal
Winners Third
Performance 9.2 8.5 Interval
Rating on 0-10 8.1
scale
Time to finish in 13.1 14.0 Ratio
seconds 14.6
Example: Assessing a Respondent’s Liking for Soft Drinks
Exercise 1: Identify the scales
• How likely are you to buy a new car within the next six months?
(Please check the most appropriate category.)
• Will definitely not buy (1)
• Extremely unlikely (2)
• Unlikely (3)
• Likely (4)
• Extremely likely (5)
• Will definitely buy (6)

• How long do you spend reading newspapers on a typical weekday?

• Less than 5 minutes
• 5 minutes to less than 15 minutes
• 15 minutes to less than 30 minutes
• 30 minutes or more

• Which one of the following media influences your purchasing decisions the most?
• Television
• Radio
• Newspapers
• Magazines
• Internet
• How far is your office from your house?
……………..Kms
Exercise 2: Identify the scales
…………………S …………………S …………………S …………………S
cale cale cale cale
Cars you own Kms drove in last Preference for car Preference Rating
month Ranking 1-10
Indica 1000 1 9
Reva 200 4 7
Santro 0 5 6
Alto 400 2 8
Figo 250 3 7
Wagon R 0 6 5
Commonly Used Multiple-item Scales
• Likert Scale
• Semantic-Differential Scale
• Stapel Scale
Table 9.2 Likert Scale Items
People purchase Reva for many reasons. For each of the following
features, tell me if you strongly agree, agree, neither agree nor
disagree, disagree or strongly disagree as a reason for Purchasing
“Reva”.
Strongly Agree Neither agree nor Disagree Strongly
Agree disagree Disagree

Shape and Looks

Comfortable to drive
Easy to park
Environmental Friendly
Comparatively less operating costs
A style statement
A good second or third car in the
family
Semantic-Differential
Scale Items
We will like to know what other characteristics a typical “Reva owner”
will have. Please respond to each of the following pairs of opposed
characteristics by marking the appropriate number (1= “the
characteristic on the left is correct”, 7= “the characteristic on the
right is correct”, 4= “neutral)
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Introvert Extrovert
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Cosmopolitan Rustic
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Spendthrift Careful with spending
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Modern Traditional
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Favourable attitude towards Unfavourable to
change Change
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Rational Irrational
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Intelligent Idiotic
Stapel Scale
Please evaluate how accurately each word describes the Reva car.
More positive means more accurate and more negative means
increasing inaccuracy
High
Quality Low Environmen Strong and
Service operating t Friendly Safe Body Easy to Stylish
cost Drive
+5 +5 +5 +5 +5 +5
+4 +4 +4 +4 +4 +4
+3 +3 +3 +3 +3 +3
+2 +2 +2 +2 +2 +2
+1 +1 +1 +1 +1 +1
-1 -1 -1 -1 -1 -1
-2 -2 -2 -2 -2 -2
-3 -3 -3 -3 -3 -3
-4 -4 -4 -4 -4 -4
-5 -5 -5 -5 -5 -5
HBO Study
Research Objectives

• Gauge the evolution of television viewers who have a past, present and
future perspective

• Identify need-states and drivers of television viewership and overall

entertainment consumption

• Measure the effect that technology and cross-platform adoption has on

current and future entertainment consumption

• Determine what entertainment options are available to consumers, how

they are perceived and how it affects behavior; which are the primary
need states fulfilled and unfulfilled

• Segment consumers based on their needs, attitudes, preferences and

behaviors to reveal opportunities for current and future strategies for
potential growth
HBO Study
Screening Criteria
• n = 5,000
• 50% male, 50% female
• 18-64 years (representative to census pop)
• Ethnicity to be representative of census
• Must subscribe to cable or satellite television or has television
service via phone service provider
• Must watch at least 5 hours of television per week
• Must have broadband Internet in the home
• Soft quota for a minimum of 50% who watch video content (any
form) on any one of the following cross-platform devices, in the
past 30 days (devices: mobile, computer, portable media
player)
• Must not from a family with members in related organizations
• Must not have been part of similar market research recently
What areas of questions to be explored?
Areas
• Screener Questions
• Demographic Questions
• Personality and Lifestyle
• Leisure activities and General Entertainment
• General Television Behaviour
• Brand Perceptions and Competitive Analysis
• General Moviegoing Behavior
• Technology Penetration
• Cross-Platform Adoption
• Online Behavior
• HBO and the Next Generation Landscape
HBO Study