Market research often relies on people’s recollection of past events. Companies make big decisions bason what people tell them they have done in the recent past, as past behaviour is often the best predictor of future behaviour. However, what often doesn’t get taken into account is that human memory is extremely malleable, and our recollections of past events often get altered in our brain without our realisation.
How our memories are formed:
Our memories are formed by combining multiple bits of the experience, rather than whole events from start to finish. This means that some parts of the experience can be forgotten, replaced with parts of another experience or get re-constructed all together, during the process of bringing multiple chunks of past experience into conscious awareness.
What we do to avoid this bias:
Experienced market researchers know how to minimise this effect, by fine-tuning the questioning techniques. But what’s even more effective is documenting the evidence of the experience as it unfolds, and asking people to describe each stage of the experience based on evidence. This technique was first invented to help patients with amnesia recollect their past, by using photographs that were automatically taken throughout their day.
THINK are very excited to now be using the same technology for market research, and the depth and accuracy of past experiences recalled using this technique for qualitative research have been eye-opening. Sitting down with respondent and asking them to recall their experience (based on capturing their movements end to end), we are hearing a wider range of experiences (both positive and negative) being recalled in our ethnography research. The overall rate of recall has increased by over 40%. As market researchers, we believe it’s highly important to keep up to date with technology, in order to keep increasing the accuracy of research and remain in the forefront of the industry. Are you getting the full story from your current research?
Written by:
Lana Bruskina – Strategy and Insight Manager
For further information on THINK Global Research, please contact Kristy Ihle (Managing Director) at info@thinkglobalresearch.com.
