Qualitative methodologies to validate (or not) a creativity

As a marketing department, product development, or advertising agency, you are absolutely sure that your ad, commercial brochure, or creativity will work. You’ve worked on it, put in many hours, know your audience, hired the best creatives, and believe it’s the best choice to properly reflect your brand and offer. You are convinced that the message you want to convey is understood and will drive consumer purchases. But… why not involve the consumer and ask them directly about that creativity to minimize risks?

Incorporating the consumer’s voice into this creative process helps measure the effectiveness of creativity, of any kind, before its launch; something that allows brands to anticipate the success or failure of it. Thanks to various market research tools and consumer analysis that we will analyze later on, you can assess credibility and message comprehension, evaluate if your brand or products are identified, analyze the feelings it generates, or measure the acceptance this creativity generates in potential consumers, among other benefits.

To obtain these insights, we can do it from different approaches to market research such as, for example, a Pretest Advertising with our WAT Survey quantitative research tool; a perfect option to discover reliable and quick information from a large sample through a survey. But what if we want to delve into consumer opinions and know the motivations, barriers, or reasons that one creativity generates compared to another? In this case, the most suitable methodology is the use of qualitative techniques, such as Online Communities or Online Focus Groups. Thanks to these techniques, we can gain a deeper understanding of their usage habits and behavior regarding any commercial material (be it a video, image, brochure, slogan…) and delve into the evaluation and perception of the prototype shown to improve it. Below, we explain how to use these qualitative methodologies with an example of testing a creativity.

Testing a commercial brochure

Let’s take a practical case of using these methodologies to validate a commercial brochure, for example, from a supermarket during these months of pandemic and confinement. Let’s put ourselves in this situation: as we all know, in 2020, consumer behavior and habits changed. The commercial brochure became a more important element as a key driver when planning purchases, spending as little time as possible in the supermarket, and ultimately motivating the choice of the supermarket and the buying decision.

Faced with this circumstance, and to make it as effective as possible, it required an analysis of its design, structure, contents, consumer behavior in its visualization…

Thanks to this prior analysis before its launch, different objectives are sought, such as understanding the impact of the brochure on purchase decisions, choosing one establishment over another, investigating aspects that generate more interest, extracting relevant insights to integrate into the development of an improved version, delving into the use and barriers of digital vs. traditional brochures…

Qualitative Methodologies for In-Depth Analysis

To obtain consumer insights that help the brand develop or improve its commercial brochure according to consumer opinions, a good option is to use qualitative studies with tools like WAT Lab, which allows conducting an Online Community with different consumer profiles (customers and non-customers of the brand, diverse sociodemographic profiles…) and propose challenges, tasks, surveys… related to the commercial brochure (or any type of creativity); as well as using Online Focus Groups as a complement, thanks to our WAT Focus tool. This product allows you to conduct in-depth interviews with a smaller and selected group, both individually and in groups, and interact with the selected users and delve into the information goals guided by a moderator, overcoming any physical or geographical barriers.

Thanks to these online qualitative tools, the moderator can show participants different brochures and collect their feedback on the cover and back cover, brochure claims, structure, design… as well as assess the pros and cons compared to similar materials from competitor brands or any other relevant data for the study.

So, what happens after the analysis? The insights obtained from the qualitative study are of great value to the brand in question since it will provide the necessary information to return the prototype to the design phase to review and incorporate the contributions made by the participating consumers in the study or have the security and confidence that the element created (whether it is a brochure, a spot, or any type of creativity) meets the expectations of consumers and the audience that receives it.