Citation
Tiu Wright, L. (2007), "Editorial", Qualitative Market Research, Vol. 10 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/qmr.2007.21610caa.001
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2007, Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Editorial
The collection of papers in this issue from Australia, Denmark, the Netherlands, the UK and the USA reflects a stimulating international mix. The benefits of researches and new insights into qualitative marketing research and management issues are in evidence. Collaborative efforts, as presented in most of the papers, also include practitioner contributions. Though the issue has a largely strong academic content there is much variety in the topics and perspectives adopted within the papers.
The first paper from Amalia Maulana and Giana Eckhardt researches a contemporary topic about web site connectedness and employs netnography to research the development of friendship and acquaintances by those on web sites. Three qualitative research methods of online interviews, diary analysis and observation are used to study consumer meanings relating to emotions and the building of new ties. An emic perspective is defined. One interesting observation that the authors found was that the frequency of visit did not determine the depth of the relationship between web sites and consumers, an aspect commonly assumed in the literature. With such limited understanding of the causes and constituents in web site connectedness within the literature there appears to be a case for much more research in a topic that is of relevance to many people as consumers and to those who provide such sites.
The consumer competence concept is seen to be loaded with ambiguity in the academic as well as in the public use of the term by Alice Grønhøj in the second paper. This has the aim of examining the concept with young adults as consumers. Consumer socialization theories are compared. A mixed-methods methodological approach for the study took in young adults aged 18-25 years of age who had recently established their first household. This mix of qualitative and quantitative approaches has thrown some light on how new, complex buying decisions are managed by these young adults in their construction of their newly formed households. The author acknowledges the need to carry out further comparative research with consumers of other age groups, at different transitional life stages and with other cultural backgrounds.
Outi Niininen, Dimitrios Buhalis and Roger March in the third paper make a study of customer empowerment in tourism through Consumer Centric Marketing (CCM). They explain how CCM is a new concept with warnings of typical caveats in its application. While CCM is expected as the norm in the future in the travel industry by customers of the future, the authors argue that the innovators are the ones gaining real tangible benefits from this development. The authors make a contribution by outlining current and future opportunities to place customers at the centre and to make organisations take note of this concept which would give them strong benefits in savings and gains through ICT.
Themes of concept articulation, web research with a mixed qualitative and quantitative methodology are also present in the fourth paper by Howard Moskowitz, Samuel Rabino and Jacqueline Beckley. The authors wanted to present an experimental design for understanding emotions through consumer models by combining the insightful nature of the qualitative approach with the numerical rigour of quantitative work. While the authors found that there were individuals who were sensitive to some emotions, they were not constrained by these emotional elements as they were not key drivers of interest in products. The paper gives a useful representation of the interactions of individual respondents and the concept elements as keys to understanding respondent behaviour.
Other researchers have argued that it can be difficult for consumers to express their feelings and views such as those regarding brand images. Projective and enabling techniques are, therefore, employed by market researchers to gain meaningful data. The fifth paper develops the idea of brand image research based on personification in an investigation of how consumers attribute personality to four beer brands. This paper by Anouk Hofstede, Joris van Hoof, Natascha Walenberg and Menno de Jong included projective techniques for brand image research using dual methods of mood boards and job-sorting tasks. By engaging participants on a hands-on basis the researchers gained both a feel of the holistic interpretations related to a list of brand personality traits and how participants could discriminate between the four beer brands. By putting these findings onto scores on personality dimensions the authors were further able to show similarities emanating from the two methods used. There is no standard vocabulary into which people in general can tap to extensively explain their meanings about brand image or personality. Qualitative in-depth analysis has a very important role to play in drawing out consumers' perspectives to provide valid results.
Age it seems is no barrier to looking good and it is qualitative research about advertising to women that Helen Borland and Selina Akram develop in the sixth paper. While it is well known that the media generally portrays young and slim women on the front of fashion glossy magazines and in fashion shows, the authors join a growing rank of people who are concerned about what this is doing to the health of society and more specifically to women. Their research poses the question of how relevant and appropriate such advertising is. They adopted the Contour Drawing Rating Scale to examine a woman's self-image and the ideal size she perceived models should be. This was done alongside Triadic Sorting in laddering interviews to obtain views on recent advertisements. While the research is limited to the two groups of women, one younger and one older, the authors' findings are interesting in their use of imagery and in demonstrating participants' reflective condescending or resorting to escapism.
The papers have theoretical and qualitative bases for underpinning their studies in explaining consumer perceptions, emotions and socialisation processes which have led consumers to subscribe to certain views. All authors and reviewers of their papers are thanked for their contributions to this issue.
Len Tiu Wright