Question

For each of the following scenarios, indicate which specific qualitative research technique you would employ and justify your answer.

a. A manufacturer of herbal teas wants to know how often and for what purposes consumers use herbal tea products.

b. A political campaign manager wants to identify ways of sharply increasing the amount of contributions from the population.

c. An amusement park is nearing the final stages of designing two new rides. It wants to measure the reactions of the public and their potential enthusiasm for the new rides.

d. A company that manufactures potato chips has two alternative package designs for the product and wants to determine which design will yield higher sales.

Answer 1

a. A manufacturer of herbal teas wants to know how often and for what purposes consumers use herbal tea products.

Answer : Ethnography technique, as manufacturer wants to know the purpose which can be known better in natural settings that is visiting the customers and knowing how and when the herbal teas are used. In this method, target participants are observed and interviewed while knowing their goals, culture motivations etc through interview or surveys.

b. A political campaign manager wants to identify ways of sharply increasing the amount of contributions from the population.

Answer : Focus group technique, in this method instead of collecting data from the population, it is collected through limited number of respondent from the target market so as to explain complex processes. As in this situation, political manager wants to increase contribution from the population so that they must know the views and ideologies of the population which is possible if they conduct online surveys from the few number of target group participant.

c. An amusement park is nearing the final stages of designing two new rides. It wants to measure the reactions of the public and their potential enthusiasm for the new rides.

Answer : One-on-One interview, in this technique customers will be asked direct responses and their opinion regarding the new rides and whether they will prefer them etc. As this method will help amusement park to understand the potential sales, enthusiasm of the customers regarding new rides. In one-on-one interview method, results can be known and interpreted immediately, as the rides are in final stage of completion therefore this method would be preferred over other qualitative techniques.

d. A company that manufactures potato chips has two alternative package designs for the product and wants to determine which design will yield higher sales.

Answer : Phenomenological technique, in this method company can use multiple methods to determine which design would likely increase the sales by use of methods like visiting places, interviewing the customers, reading existing reports and documents so that they are in better position to understand customer preferences. As this technique provides participants own perspective which is important while making choices between two designs.