Qualitative Research, Con'td...

Qualitative research is a big aspect of the campaign planning process in order for discovery of what people say and do. It is research that can uncover meaning, comprehension and processes that consumers have regardless of where they live. This week, a couple of blogs were brought to my attention that further support the benefits of qualitative research usage inside of national PR campaigns. In a blog entitled, PR France, by Vanessa. Vanessa describes a qualitative fieldwork facility in Paris called the “Louvre Focus Group”. This facility is provided for businesses and whoever else needs to rent a space to conduct focus groups, translations services, and moderating group sessions.

The Louvre Focus Group helps to reveal just how quickly French Public Relations business strategies are progressing.  Mostly, other nations as well as the United States conduct all their focus groups in-house, to reduce as much costs as possible. As Vanessa stated in her blog, these rooms come for a pretty penny, thus taking away one of the most predominant reasons why companies and organizations conduct focus groups to begin with: To save money.  Thus, I believe that this type of “rent for rooms” will not take off far internationally unless costs can decrease. Another way to catalyze businesses like The Louvre Focus Group in the U.S. is through reciprocal agreements between businesses to business that rely on trading for focus space more so than buying time for space.

Additionally, Lisa’s Blog, by Lisa Perez, studied the qualitative research measure of ethnographic research and how this procedure “consists of studying human behavior in its most natural context…involving observation of behavior in a physical setting”. Thus such research can apply beyond U.S. national borders and into other countries with the studying/observation of respective cultures and traditions. All of which are characteristics that implement the differences between PR campaign conductions in each respective area.  In particular, Perez uses MTV’s hit show World of Jenks,  as an example as he , “physically puts himself into different environments each week to try and observe and understand the cultures Jenks interacts with, people that range from homeless, to star rappers…”. Thus, his study is much like a study one would conduct if they wanted to answer the question, “how does PR research campaigns differ from country to country” which my blog focus contains. Therefore I can see conducting an ethnographic study, although very expensive and time consuming, a way for me to answer my focus question  besides the posting of content inside this blog. 

Burning Up: Qualitative Research In UK Skin Cancer Awareness Campaign

SunSmart, a national skin cancer prevention campaign from the UK non-profit organization Cancer Research UK,   provides evidence-based information about skin cancer and sun protection.

In a recent research study for SunSmart, qualitative research was used to yield findings about young people and sun protection for their summer national campaign.

According to Adverting and Public Relation’s Research, qualitative research “observes what people say and do”. It is a means of describing meaning, comprehension and processes.  The main aim is to gather a deep understanding of human behavior and the reasons behind such behavior from smaller samples. For example, focus groups and individual interviews.

More specifically to the UK SunSmart campaign, the qualitative investigation was to investigate the “attitudes towards the sun, sun protection and skin cancer among young people and mothers of young children”. The results were concluded by 12 moderated focus groups with up to 8 respondents in each group. The targeted audience of the samples included mothers aged 25-34 with one or to children aged 2-6 years, teenagers living at home from 12-13 and 16-17 separately,  as well as, young adults living at home and independently 21-24 years old each.

This sample group yielded the following qualitative conclusions:

• The potential long-term risk of skin cancer is of limited interest to young people.

• Tanning is extremely desirable and thus safer tanning advice is the only message likely to be accepted by dedicated tanners.

• Skin ageing and skin damage caused by the sun is of concern to young women and has the potential to motivate behavior change.

• Young people are more likely to consider sun protection when travelling abroad, but less likely to think of it in the UK.

• The use of factor 15+ sunscreen is really the only sun protection message which young people are willing to consider/adopt.

• Mothers typically take responsibility for sun protection for the whole family. In regard to their children, mothers are generally receptive to sun protection advice.

Additionally, comments such as “I think showing you how a mole can change, that’s a wakeup call. You start to think, ‘I wonder if any of my moles are changing’" by a female in the  25-35 group as well as the comment in the transcript, “I think they need to let people know you can still tan wearing sun creams. Yeah it protects you while you tan” by another female in the 25-35 group, show just how informative qualitative focus groups are at getting into the mindset of the consumer’s awareness or perception of a product or in this case an idea.

In sum, these findings from the qualitative sample evaluation led the SunSmart team to decide what messages they wanted to inform people in their proposed skin cancer prevention campaign. These topics fittingly included skin cancer and mole awareness. Other points included safer tanning messages will need to be counter-balanced with information on the cumulative and irreparable effects of tanning and the associated health risks. As well as the awareness that the use of 15+ sun screen is pertinent to maintain good skin care. 

The final product from these results can be seen within the picture at the beginning of this article.  Overall, I was surprised to see that research participants did not care about the effects of skin cancer. Most of this was not due to lack of education of skin cancer effects but due to  personal life choice to want to look good being tan. Therefore, I feel it is important that awareness of protection of skin is not enough. One must also showing how one looks because of tanning inside the ad campaign since this concept was found inside the qualitative research study. Thus, qualitative research in the PR campaign production process helps to create less ambiguity that your target audience will pick up your message seeing as the data collected supports the sample's beliefs.

Research Evils Exposed!

Living up to a mistake one has made in a research campaign experiment is one of the most trying actions on the human ego. Luckily, with a good publicist at hand, cover-ups can be handled smoothly thus allowing the gossip to die down. But when matters are affecting a global spectrum, sometimes it's hard to forgive and forget official's actions. 

Think back to 1940. An era seeming harmless hiding behind the "American Dream" when in reality  research studies were conducted that looked at new ways to prevent STDS by direct inoculation of soldiers, prisoners, and mental hospital patients! In this article, Fox News noted that Hilary Clinton recently made a published apology regarding giving STDS to Guatemalan mental patients without any consent or knowledge by the Guatemalan subjects. What was originally going to be just a "fact sheet" provided by a practitioner, turns into a research study comparable to the Tuskgee Syphilis Study, where the participants inside the study thought that they were being treated when really they received placebos or were directly given the disease. 

In order to fix the unethical Guatemalan experiment, the United States decided to start a new campaign that will conjure, "an international group of experts, to review and report on the most effective methods to ensure that all human medical research conducted around the globe today meets rigorous ethical standards," said Health and Human Services inside the article.  It was then further concluded by HHS that "the training of researchers will ensure such abuses do not occur". 

Yet, one should note that not all research for medical reasons is unethical in the pr campaign world. According to Charlie Nelien's blog, unobtrusive research, pertains to methods of gathering data by means of obtaining information without the subject actually being observed. Interning for a biomedical marketing company, Nelien learned the ins and outs for recording medical information of targeted people. Examples included how "doctors search the patient's insurance providers to document past medical symptoms"  and have historically been using these unobtrusive techniques for decades. 


Still, many argue that unobtrusive research has its unethical aspects as well. Take the example that one's information from his or her insurance provider may contain information that the person wants to keep private. He or she has no idea that this information is being used and for what purpose. I believe this just as extremely unethical as infecting Guatemalan's with STDs. Each of these groups of test subjects has the right to know when they are being tested and why for their information represents a part of them and thus requires notification of usage of one's own "property of thoughts". 

Other commentaries on the unethical side of obtrusive research methods described in Whitney's blog which describes how there are "computer monitors that use an optical sensor using an infrared light bouncing off of the cornea to capture eyes movements" as the readers eyes look at the Web page. Readers have no idea that a camera is attached to the computer and is watching their eyes every move. Even though such "candid" methods are used to rule out bias, these are still seen as violation of privacy in my mind. Additionally, such methods might not be Illegal, but rain supreme in disregard for ethical responsibilities. Candid cameras, injecting test subjects, and looking at private insurance files as a whole make the research aspect of PR look deceitfully dirty. Hopefully in the future with the progression of the Internet and social media, one will use focus on the capabilities to be anonymous chat rooms when conducting research.  For I believe that anonymity in testing can retain ethical standards responsibly than obtrusive research means can as expressed in the examples above.

Unobtrusive Campaigns & Research: New Ways to Promote or New Ways To Provoke?

Remaining unobtrusive to a target audience’s personal space in the PR business is essential in order to to maintain a positive association in consumers with a company’s products and campaigns. While some PR firms stress doing their research unobtrusively, more recently, PR professionals have adapted the way to reach their target markets in campaign promotion “unobtrusively”.  Different from unobtrusive research, which is a procedure in which participants are unaware they are being observed or used as sources of data, unobtrusive campaigns aim to reach the target market with a message subtly. A big contrast to the big events and parties most PR campaigns host to raise awareness. The main aid in this worldwide campaign revolution is due to the ever-evolving world wide Web.

More exclusively, Pandora a music Web site that allows the user to stream songs for free, is leading the crowd with this “subconscious” form of promoting ads/campaigns. Explained in this article on Digital PR, Jameson Whiskey created an advertisement in the form of a playlist that users can stream songs. Most importantly, no pop outs take the user away from the site, everything stays on Pandora.

Of course traditional methods are still used to conduct unobtrusive research, but have adapted to fit inside the modern tech-friendly world. In this study, researchers used the eye-mouse coordination patterns on web search results pages to see what results people lingered on the longest with their pointers.  Check out this youtube video for a detailed example. Knowing where people place their eyes on web pages can be very beneficial to PR business people whom will know where to place ads, seeing as these places receive more mouse and therefore eyesight traffic.

It’s also important to note that even though unobtrusive research and campaigns aim to not be invasive to the viewer’s privacy, doing these research studies behind the participants back can be viewed as deceitful. Ethics play a big part in these campaigns and studies if using misleading information or withholding information plays a large role in the composure. Personally, I feel that as long as the study does not harm or extensively violate a person personal physical or mental property than the studies and campaigns can continue to occur “secretly”.  On the other hand, if obtrusive studies videotape the participant and expose publicly the tape, such studies should be condoned due to their unethical nature of violation of privacy laws.