The nature of qualitative and quantitative information is quite different, and this will be explored in Chapters 6 and 7. The differences translate into the ways that it is commissioned, which tend to be more obviously rational and logical for quantitative data than for qualitative research,
although as will be shown later in this chapter, the same amount of thinking goes into both cases.
Quantitative research can fall into two broad types: one involves comparatively simple quantification and the other uses special tech- niques or methods of analysis.
The work that is about simple quantification is really commodity based and therefore goes to the lowest cost provider. However, a number of issues arise here. First, it is apparent that the basic fieldwork should be done properly and in accordance with the standards the Market Research Society advocates, including conformance to the relevant elements of its Code. Ideally, the field force should also be a member of a recognized quality standards system such as the Interviewer Quality Control Scheme (IQCS) that operates in the United Kingdom. This all costs money and makes the job more expensive than it would be oth- erwise, so it is temping to go to providers that do not have these stan- dards but do have a field force that can double up as market research interviewers. Placing business in this way is rarely sensible, because not only may the fieldwork not be carried out in accordance with the instructions, but also, without proper controls being in place to manage it, the data may end up being wholly invented. Furthermore, the qual- ity of the responses is bound to be worse than those obtained by using properly trained interviewers.
There is also another reason for using a proper research agency on such work. This is because all jobs do need some design: that is, the sample, location, question set and tabulation specification all need to be decided upon. In addition, such quantitative jobs may not be as simple as they appear, and the design may require more than basic market research knowledge, and need thinking through properly and with originality (see Chapter 8).
However, the fact is that much can come out of simple quantitative research and that within the limits of the basic rudiments, this is normally bought from the lowest cost provider, or for some other sub-commodity
‘est’ reason (see Chapter 1).
In some cases, quantitative research can be used to support major decisions in a company, and even though the research may be quite simple, the choice of supplier then becomes important and political. In addition, in these cases the cost of it can be very high, which further adds to the sensitivity of the choice of supplier. In these cases, selection is done on the basis of reputation and specialization. For example, the
selection of a advertising tracking agency is important because the con- tract will have to run for at least two years, and will therefore involve a lot of expense. Furthermore, it will be used to make decisions about the company’s advertising, which generally involves a lot of money, but also is about the future of the brands that the company owns, which normally are worth even more. The research stakeholders in this case are necessarily important and varied. They will include the marketing function, the advertising agency or agencies and probably the board as a whole, as it has to support the continued investment in marketing. So the selection of the research provider in this case is complicated and important. Similar issues may surround other big tracking studies such as customer satisfaction.
Other types of use of a quantitative agency are when some special- ized work is required such as pricing work, or brand positioning work.
These tend to come up only occasionally, and the market of suppliers in each of these types of area is wide and the differences in their offer- ings generally not transparent. This is because there is often some form of proprietary element to the methodology that the supplier company wants to keep secret. A research buyer needs to invest a lot of work in order to keep on top of these specialist research suppliers and understand the nature of their offerings, as when the time comes for the company to do research in one of these areas, there will not be the time to catch up on one’s homework.
At a more pedestrian level, it is important for a research buyer to know such things as the merits of the competing omnibus products that are available and where their strengths are. This could be simple things like the base size, the times that they run, the regions that they run in and the speed of turnaround.
The essential background information for a research buyer when buying quantitative work is a general knowledge of the research mar- ket industry and the products within it. To this extent, it is not very personality driven, which, as has already been mentioned and will be developed further, is the case in qualitative research buying. However, having said all this, it is always better when the research buyer has pre- viously met someone in the agency that he or she is proposing to place business with, and this is the reason research pitches are better than straightforward adverts for quantitative research, and why building up networks through the conference circuit is important also.