Good qualitative goes deep, and this means stretching into areas that people might not have gone before.

People signal to themselves all the time, but they don’t always read the signals, or take time to understand what’s going on in their own lives. Part of the beauty of the qualitative interview (particularly depth interview) is it gives you the opportunity to find out with the participant what something means to them – perhaps at a deeper level than they’ve realised.

Example: home fragrance – making your house smell nice.

You can and should start off on easy street with questions…
“Tell me about air fresheners…”
“And tell me a bit about when you last bought…?” “How typical was that?”

You can start to dig into drivers and motivations…
“What did you want from the fragrance?”
“Why was is important to you?”

You can then dig deeper (or actually perhaps better put, go higher up the ladder… climb with them)
And…“let’s think about why that matters?”
“What does that tell you about yourself?”
“What are you signalling to yourself here?”

Why is this helpful? It’s potentially interesting to the participant – it’s part of the gift they get by doing the research, but for the researcher, it’s an insight into why this thing/ brand/ story matters to people.

Air fragrance might be about signalling ‘harmony’ at home (one key driver), or perhaps it might be about making spaces and places welcoming, or it might be about subtefuge and cover up…

This deeper (or higher) meaning shows up everywhere and all day long and it’s what brands and marketing can tap into when they are telling their stories…