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In this episode, our qualitative experts debate the future of qual by comparing in-person and virtual qual, looking at some amazing examples of how technology has enabled a more natural experience for consumers, and the impact of artificial intelligence on qualitative research.
Welcome to Dig In, the podcast brought to you by the minds at Dig Insights. We're interviewing some of the most inspiring brand professionals in marketing, innovation, and insights to discover the story behind the story of their most exciting innovations.
00;00;06;23 - 00;00;33;19
Speaker 1
Hi. Welcome to Dig in the podcast brought to you by Dig Insights. Every week we interview founders, marketers and researchers from innovative brands to learn how they're approaching their role and their category in a clever way. Hello. Welcome back to this week's episode of Dig In. Today, I'm very excited because I get to talk to my colleagues, which is always really fun.
00;00;34;16 - 00;00;53;05
Speaker 1
Patricia King, Denisa Preoteasa and Julien Naggar are here with me. They're all members of the Qual team. Patricia heads it up. And today we're going to talk about what the future of quality's like. You know, no big deal. Just huge decisions to be made. Julian, how are you doing?
00;00;53;22 - 00;00;56;13
Speaker 2
Crystal ball. Ready. So I think I'm ready to go.
00;00;57;28 - 00;01;00;20
Speaker 1
Denisa, you've got a crystal ball to.
00;01;00;20 - 00;01;04;23
Speaker 3
Yes, I'm actually upset because Julian got my.
00;01;07;00 - 00;01;09;14
Speaker 1
Patricia, you're you're good.
00;01;09;24 - 00;01;18;26
Speaker 4
You're ready to listen to what Julian Indonesia has to say. A very quiet I'm going to hear philosophy today.
00;01;18;26 - 00;01;23;28
Speaker 1
So I guess a little bit of context. Patricia, how big is our call team right now?
00;01;24;21 - 00;01;41;06
Speaker 4
We are currently 15 people and growing. We have three full teams, two of which Sinisa and Julian lead off and we have an AVP as well. So yeah, we're growing rapidly and hiring. Anyone listening to this? Yes. Out.
00;01;41;15 - 00;02;04;20
Speaker 1
We are hiring. We're always hiring. This is you guys are some of our busiest, busiest people within the business. So I'm very happy that we were able to finally land on a time to chat. Do you guys want. I don't know who to start with. Patricia, let's start with you. Can you tell me a little bit about Quality Dig and a little bit of how you sort of got started here?
00;02;05;18 - 00;02;31;25
Speaker 4
Yeah, sure. So Quality Dig is, I would say relatively new and I say relatively because, you know, as I'm sure a lot of people know, we started back in 2010 and at that point we were just a client company. You know, fast forward 12 years later and we are, you know, a full service tech enabled market research consultancy.
00;02;32;11 - 00;02;53;21
Speaker 4
So we've definitely changed over the years. And quality is, you know, it's quite interesting because we saw a need from our clients that we wanted to be able to tap. We saw a problem from our clients that we wanted to solve and so therefore we brought fall in-house. So yeah, that only started at five years ago. Five years ago it was just me.
00;02;54;06 - 00;03;20;22
Speaker 4
And as we mentioned, now we're 15 people, three teams. And you know, we've really kind of tried to lean into that, that tech that tech first type of ball, which, you know, wasn't really that big of a thing five years ago. So it's been exciting. As for my role, I'm a I'm an EVP, so I run, you know, the whole qualitative team and yeah, and then we have Julian and Denisof.
00;03;21;19 - 00;03;25;01
Speaker 1
And Julian, you come from a more traditional background in Qual.
00;03;25;10 - 00;03;53;20
Speaker 2
Yeah, and in person. MODERATOR So my, my whole background is very much focus group rooms in person one on one ethnography is a now kind of learned and grown with the team and and gone more digital as we all have with with COVID and and do a lot of the P2P innovation work stuff with regards to financial medical the fun stuff.
00;03;54;12 - 00;03;57;08
Speaker 1
Very cool. And what about you, Denisa? What's your background?
00;03;57;09 - 00;04;33;21
Speaker 3
I'm I'm a quality through and through actually starting with sociology. So that's been my background that I've actually started qual with many years ago. I'm going to say probably around 15 during and during university. And they started actually with checking respondents when we used to do that many years ago. Yeah. And here I am still doing qual it was my first love in the family and my last year your husband got here.
00;04;35;15 - 00;04;57;28
Speaker 1
I mean, it's like so evident even just from talking to you guys briefly, you all come qualitative research from such a sort of unique background. I wonder sort of what, what kind of got you guys interested in qual in the first place, like Patricia, why did why did you end up going into qualitative?
00;04;57;28 - 00;05;06;27
Speaker 4
Well, when you say what makes us interesting. Well, I think, you know, normally you can't speak overall, all of us. We're trying to be very polite right now.
00;05;07;18 - 00;05;08;14
Speaker 3
I think the fact.
00;05;08;14 - 00;05;32;03
Speaker 4
That we all like to talk helps you get into qual that you're extrovert it and that you're curious. You just want to know how people are feeling, how they're thinking. So I think, you know, those three things combined, but really, the the talking helps you become a call researcher outside of a client researcher. But yeah. So my, my path to qual was very different actually.
00;05;32;03 - 00;05;57;13
Speaker 4
So I'm actually credentialed evaluator, which many people may not know what that means, but I started my career evaluating quantitative and qualitative fully government programing. So I talked to Youth at Risk. I talked to the homeless, I talked to the underemployed. So I spent many years doing evaluation before kind of turning that into a a market research career.
00;05;57;13 - 00;06;26;24
Speaker 4
I was working within the government and went to work for one of my market research clients. So or vendors I should say so, yeah. I moved into market research in a very unlikely way. But, you know, the the 10 to 15 years experience that I had in both survey design and focus group moderation and I, I kind of made that the perfect fit for, for Digg insights and being able to bring all and client together.
00;06;27;02 - 00;06;34;10
Speaker 4
And for any of you doing that math, I'm not going to tell you how long. I'm obviously 29.
00;06;34;27 - 00;06;44;11
Speaker 1
I hope that that was not what people were just thinking as they were listening to you. They're like, Hmm, I'm just going to try and figure out her age.
00;06;44;11 - 00;06;46;02
Speaker 4
Very important topic of conversation.
00;06;47;17 - 00;06;57;21
Speaker 1
And then, Denisa, you said you started in sociology. I mean, what was that? And were you just interested in humans and human behavior? Is that sort of what led you to call?
00;06;58;18 - 00;07;24;08
Speaker 3
Yeah, I've always been interested in understanding how individuals make decisions as well as make decisions. And that kind of led me to sociology and sort of this specialty that I opted for in sociology was marketing. So it's a mix of understanding how people make decisions with a marketing lens. And then I started, as I said, I started to do checking respondents.
00;07;24;08 - 00;07;42;03
Speaker 3
That was my first university sort of part time job. It's going to be and through you know, I discovered motivational research. They have this very cool tool called sensorium. And that sort of opened up a whole new world for me. And I say.
00;07;42;19 - 00;07;44;00
Speaker 1
Cool. What about you, Julianne?
00;07;45;04 - 00;08;22;27
Speaker 2
Yeah. So what's your one bit of a different story? So I finished, I finished university and, and studied theater and anthropology. And I was I was going to be an actor. But as every actor I know, as every actor I know, I, I also needed to make an income. So I emailed every relative cousin adult that I knew saying, Hey, Will, will you employ me so that I can I can pursue this other thing.
00;08;22;27 - 00;08;27;06
Speaker 1
And that's all people love to hear that. People love to hear that.
00;08;28;20 - 00;08;30;15
Speaker 2
Well, a cousin of a cousin responded.
00;08;30;15 - 00;08;31;12
Speaker 1
To play music.
00;08;31;12 - 00;09;14;21
Speaker 2
And so and amazing work. She she happened to work for a small well she led a small cloth shop called ABA Research and took me on as a note taker and slowly that that note taking turned into me pursuing an MBA. Maybe you know, failing a little bit as in the in the theater but but using that MBA and and the theater with with a new organization post MBA that that trained me up and moderating, which ended up using a lot of the same skills of pulling out emotions and and getting people to really express themselves with, you know, a one sided mirror and an audience behind it.
00;09;15;15 - 00;09;24;20
Speaker 1
Super cool. I mean, Patricia, you've got such a diverse team here. I know there's many more. But even just from a leadership perspective, so many different backgrounds.
00;09;25;17 - 00;09;26;17
Speaker 4
Very much so.
00;09;27;06 - 00;09;45;21
Speaker 1
Well, I guess the fact that you guys all come from such different places means that you've also probably got some really different opinions. Hopefully, I'm hoping this is going to be a lively debate about what the future of call looks like. I'm sure it makes you guys a much stronger team when it comes to the work you're doing with your clients.
00;09;46;09 - 00;10;08;17
Speaker 1
So let's dove right in. Let's get into the the tricky stuff. Do we think Qual was dying pre-COVID has a bounce back? Is it? You know, that is a huge topic of conversation. Let's start first with was quote quote unquote dying pre-COVID. What do you guys think of yesterday?
00;10;08;17 - 00;10;32;00
Speaker 4
We started the conversation with yes, qual was dying because we kind of, as you pointed out, were a very diverse team. We have very different perspectives, which makes us stronger. We often have to agree on things before we start talking. And we had this conversation that was qual dying and, you know, we kind of all agreed on qual wasn't dying traditional.
00;10;32;00 - 00;10;59;06
Speaker 4
Qual was dying and that the market and the technology just wasn't keeping up the pace of, you know, what, what the world wanted to see, what our clients want to see. They want to see faster, easier, quicker qual that, you know, prickle did was it was there but I don't know if it was in many ways believed if it was good it was good some some methodologies were good.
00;10;59;06 - 00;11;17;01
Speaker 4
But respondents were not good online yet respondents were not good at having a conversation like this. So, you know, I don't think it was qual that was dying. I think traditional qual was dying and we just needed to find something new and innovative to kind of revive it.
00;11;17;01 - 00;11;26;25
Speaker 3
Yeah, it's just like the brand needs words, like it feels like the client needs were kind of changing, and then we have to kind of adapt to that little bit. It's well.
00;11;26;25 - 00;11;40;10
Speaker 1
Sorry, guys, I didn't mean I don't want to interrupt too much. I've also just realized that we haven't really defined for the listener what traditional call is. So maybe we can take a step back. What? What is that? What is traditional? Is it just in person? Is that what we mean?
00;11;41;07 - 00;11;53;26
Speaker 3
That's exactly what we mean. Think first and a lot of travel, a lot of hours in facility or a lot of hours in a store or a lot of hours in someone's house. Actually.
00;11;53;26 - 00;12;08;24
Speaker 4
And and a lot of hours in big cities. Most traditional qual research was done in those folks facilities doing those one on one's going to people's homes in big cities because that's what was accessible at the time.
00;12;10;01 - 00;12;23;26
Speaker 1
Okay. And Denisa, you were saying that the client needs were changing. Do you mean do you mean that it was much like Patricia was saying they needed things faster or were they actually needing different things from qualitative research?
00;12;23;26 - 00;12;50;17
Speaker 3
I think it's both. I think it's they definitely needed things faster. I think it's also a matter of cost as well. Right. With online, we were able to become more cost efficient as well. But yeah, I think there was there were multiple needs sort of changing and definitely fast was one of them like you have to wait quite a bit for people to come out of there to be able to get that report in your hands.
00;12;51;03 - 00;13;18;09
Speaker 2
Just like backtrack a bit like traditional qual was dying like it's, you know, it was declining. It was you know, when I when I joined, when I started in the field, I was told, you know, this is a it's a shrinking and specialized field, which was not the case 20 years ago. We don't fly business class anymore was kind of what I was told, which, you know, even in the growth, I think we're flying business class anymore.
00;13;18;09 - 00;13;49;12
Speaker 2
And, you know, from from a client perspective, you know, you think about, you know, the late nineties, early 2000s. It's hard to make a business case for $100,000 study when you know this big data is coming out. And now we have percentages and we have numbers and well, and when you go to your your senior leader and you come with a percentage slide and you come on the slide as a bunch of emotions that with 12 people instead of 10,000 people, it's a very hard case to make.
00;13;49;24 - 00;14;02;20
Speaker 2
You know, that's that's shifting, right? That's that's shifting now because we can find ways to do it cheaper. We can find ways to do it better. We can find ways to do it with bigger samples. But I'm sure we'll get into that.
00;14;03;06 - 00;14;24;09
Speaker 1
Yeah, that's that's really interesting. I mean, I hadn't actually thought about this before this call, but I do these rapid fire questions at the end of the podcast with people on the client side that are like, you know, if you had a lot of times it's researchers saying if you had your budget tomorrow, what would you spend it?
00;14;24;13 - 00;14;47;06
Speaker 1
What would you spend it on? And I think it's like nine of the ten times when I ask my question, they say call, study, like every person says equal study. And I think that that's really interesting when you're talking about, you know, how it's hard to justify the need for that. More like emotional, you know, 12 people instead of 1200 people type of research.
00;14;47;06 - 00;14;49;25
Speaker 1
I know we'll kind of get into what the future of call needs to look like.
00;14;49;26 - 00;15;11;05
Speaker 3
Interesting is that people, like most of our clients, if you look at their strategies and the way they talk about customer centricity is customer centricity is very much rooted in empathy. However, when you have to talk about tradeoffs, you know, so to me, that's a market nation that I would like to point out in this discussion.
00;15;12;01 - 00;15;27;22
Speaker 4
And and I think one of the things we we've done it again, when you think about how how we have an innovative and how we have pushed for that tech forward and we're going to get into later the fact that we're not always tech forward. We're back in facility all the time. We still love in-person, don't get me wrong when it makes sense.
00;15;28;15 - 00;15;55;24
Speaker 4
But but that idea of, you know, we've we've kind of started to build projects that are not just quality projects and are not quantitative projects. I would say it did 60 to 70% of the projects we do actually call one together. So you don't all you don't have to anymore go and say, oh, I have these 12 participants or Oh, I have these numbers now you have these numbers and we can explain the why behind them and we can give them that empathy and we can give them those folks.
00;15;55;24 - 00;16;14;17
Speaker 4
So we've kind of developed a model where we never think about we think about the objective and then the solution. And does a qual quant solution makes sense so that clients can have both of that? And I think that's one of the reasons why we have been successful, because, you know, there's there are the companies are often separate.
00;16;14;17 - 00;16;38;15
Speaker 4
You have a quant company, you have a Kellogg company, and yeah, you bring each other and when you need to. But having both in-house and always thinking about, you know, I always picture that that iceberg we put we put that slide in many proposals. But that idea that, you know, we get all the wants, we get all the answers, and then we we have an opportunity to dove deep at doing that as a full team just brings that extra value.
00;16;38;15 - 00;16;47;19
Speaker 4
So I don't think clients always have to choose now how they spend that one big bulk budget with a specific with a specific vendor.
00;16;48;08 - 00;17;19;03
Speaker 1
Yeah, that's so cool. And I think that it's funny because we were talking at the beginning of this sort of a question about how client needs were changing. But for in a lot of ways they're still thinking about call in quite, quite a traditional way of it having to be sort of isolated from from clients. I wonder if that's I would love to go into that, not now of like a little bit more about how we approach that.
00;17;19;10 - 00;17;40;20
Speaker 1
But I don't want to I don't want to skip past this idea of how your guys's opinions differ when it comes to traditional versus virtual call research. Like how do you kind of handle that within a team where you guys are working? So synchronous, synchronous typically that's not a word where you guys are working in sync all the time.
00;17;40;29 - 00;17;46;17
Speaker 1
How do you sort of handle a difference in opinion when it comes to the way that you work with those two methods?
00;17;47;21 - 00;17;56;00
Speaker 3
I think naturally you're going to have affinities like definitely I have more affinity for the words online and for virtual for sure.
00;17;57;05 - 00;18;00;28
Speaker 1
Julien Do you have more of an affinity towards traditional?
00;18;00;28 - 00;18;23;24
Speaker 2
Yes, I do have. I do have a strong affinity for it, for in-person. I think one of the conversations that I had is just how that or what we have all talked about is will, will call, just move fully virtual. And and I really think there's so much value to in-person. And of course, no one wants to do the evenings, the travel, the, you know, the time away from home.
00;18;24;02 - 00;18;57;17
Speaker 2
Nobody really wants that. But it's sometimes needed if you want to get to the to depth, if you want to read body language, you know, we we talk about like how, oh, we can do a focus group online and we can for so much. But you're you do miss those micro cues. You do miss those those physical demonstrations of boredom, intrigue, excitement, anger like certain things where when half of your body is hidden, you're just going to miss it.
00;18;58;06 - 00;19;21;19
Speaker 2
And it's not even you're going to miss it. And then the report it's you're going to miss it and you're not going to probe on it. And then you're not going to get the depth and you're not going to get the feeling. So I don't think that you need that depth of feeling for 95% of studies. But for that 5% of studies in medical in in semiotics like you do need to go you need do you need to dig?
00;19;21;25 - 00;19;41;03
Speaker 4
And I would I would kind of jump in there with I agree with Julian that, you know, sometimes first still need it, especially if it's sensory, if it's something you need to feel, if something you need to touch. But what I also and this is a conversation we have often is, you know, do we want to do in-person?
00;19;41;03 - 00;20;00;13
Speaker 4
Do we want to be there? Do you want to do that? Shop along, see those micro moments? What is the objective? Because right now, if we think about the future, sometime in the future, if we think about this year, if we think about last year, if we think about three years ago, people are on their phones, they're taking videos, they're taking pictures.
00;20;00;13 - 00;20;19;23
Speaker 4
That's how they're comfortable. They're talking to their friends on Facebook Messenger or on Face Time, and they're very comfortable behind the camera. So often, I do believe that you can get more from people, especially I think about my younger cousins. You talk to them in person, they're so awkward. All of a sudden you get them on a video call.
00;20;19;23 - 00;20;38;05
Speaker 4
They're so comfortable. That's how they live and they know how to express themselves. So I think depending on who you're talking to, what you want to see, that idea of getting rid of the moderator from from the the equation, being able to let them take a video, show you their home, show up, show us what's in their fridge, shows their shopping trip.
00;20;38;23 - 00;20;45;27
Speaker 4
Sometimes I think depending upon the target audience and and the business objective, you may get more from online.
00;20;46;13 - 00;21;05;15
Speaker 3
Yeah, not always one place for both. I think there's a time and a place for both, but I think the emergence of technology is undeniable and I think we just need to be at the forefront of it. And I think that's that's kind of my position and that's where I have that affinity towards online is because there is this emergence of technology.
00;21;05;15 - 00;21;12;11
Speaker 3
It's undeniable. And if you do that, then you're behind. And I'm going to be like by you.
00;21;13;14 - 00;21;18;20
Speaker 2
All right. So digs and digs going all in on the metaverse. Now let's let's do it.
00;21;19;02 - 00;21;24;01
Speaker 3
Yeah, we are actually large. If you brought.
00;21;26;01 - 00;21;27;08
Speaker 2
Metaverse partners.
00;21;28;05 - 00;21;34;00
Speaker 3
When are we starting to draw it?
00;21;34;18 - 00;21;55;28
Speaker 1
I feel like as someone who's left close to like Julian, you said 95% of the time, you probably can do it virtually. But there's that 5% and you kind of said that like health care or semiotics, if someone was listening to this, like, where would you say you absolutely cannot do what virtually is there, what sensory you mentioned?
00;21;56;11 - 00;22;01;27
Speaker 1
Is there anything else people should be aware of? Like don't even try to do call virtually if you're the.
00;22;01;27 - 00;22;03;28
Speaker 4
First hope someone is listening to.
00;22;03;28 - 00;22;04;09
Speaker 3
This.
00;22;05;05 - 00;22;18;07
Speaker 1
If anyone or anyone out there. Okay, no, they'll be loads of listeners. But of those people, what should like what should they absolutely not try and do virtually with all.
00;22;18;24 - 00;22;50;26
Speaker 2
A product recall because that's that's really a lot of what my moderating training was was in if you're talking to a patient and you're talking about a rare disease, you can do that on a video call, but you won't have a box of Kleenex in front of you. You won't be able to see that, you know, potentially a respondent to you need to be able to be there with the person if you're going to get them to share in a way that they may not necessarily want to share in that moment.
00;22;50;26 - 00;23;02;08
Speaker 2
And then you also have to know how to respect their boundaries, those kinds of sensitive moments, I would say need in-person. Are there things that like when you're kind of.
00;23;02;08 - 00;23;02;21
Speaker 4
Another.
00;23;02;22 - 00;23;03;21
Speaker 2
I'm sorry.
00;23;04;08 - 00;23;29;05
Speaker 4
Oh, I was going to say another area is just honestly, like when we think about user testing, when it comes to physical products, people have something on screen and like it. But, you know, especially we do a lot of work in the cannabis space. You know, if you're if you're a developer, if you're making a new a vape and, you know, you have buttons in specific places or you have buttons that you're wondering people are going to use or what the light should be and how the lights look and are they obvious?
00;23;29;17 - 00;23;46;02
Speaker 4
Are those are things where, you know, we definitely have to go back in the facility. I think most user testing not online but with physical products, package testing. Again, you know, is it convenient? How does it how does it go in a microwave? How does things break up? You know, those types of things I think still need to be in facility for.
00;23;46;04 - 00;24;35;20
Speaker 3
Yeah, 100%. And I think we have not figured out a way. Here's, here's the thing that I always like to think about, which is especially when you think about product, this thing and there's a lot to be said in terms of product testing and moderator bias in that moment. And to me, the most pure way of doing product this thing sometimes is to actually give that product to a person at home and have them interact with that product at home without me being there, breathing down your neck and drawing your attention to that person or drawing your attention and the seal that maybe the client thought took place in a in a in a place
00;24;35;20 - 00;25;04;15
Speaker 3
where it's not visible and so on and so forth, so to me, there's some it's still very expensive. I think we are doing it, but it's still kind of expensive. But 100% there's something to be said in terms of how do people actually naturally interact with certain products, with certain with certain packages, with certain, how do they actually taste that in in their own kitchen, for example, without me being there?
00;25;05;02 - 00;25;23;02
Speaker 1
So sorry. This is probably kind of a naive question. I've never run cold research, so like when you're saying in their home, I think that's a really interesting point. Are you saying that you send someone something, they open it and they're on video while they're doing it, but you're not sort of prompting them. Okay. Okay. That's very.
00;25;23;02 - 00;25;28;20
Speaker 4
Interesting. That's great. You ask this about what kind of tools we're using. So you what are we doing?
00;25;28;20 - 00;25;29;22
Speaker 1
Is are you using.
00;25;30;02 - 00;25;51;23
Speaker 3
We are using all sorts of tools. But but definitely there's something to be said of the combination and the hybrid. And I think it is going to I think quality is going to mirror what we're doing in our life, in our in our day to day for sure as well. Right. We are in the hybrid environment still. I think we're going to continue to be in a hybrid environment.
00;25;52;08 - 00;26;10;18
Speaker 3
I think there's a place in the time for all of these things, and it depends on the target that you have. It depends on the like maybe you don't have a finished product. If you don't have a finished product, then what am I going to send you home? There's nothing I can send you home. You have to come to me in a facility and we can discuss it about it and so on and so forth.
00;26;11;00 - 00;26;18;09
Speaker 3
So there's definitely a 30 minute place for both, but more online. Yeah.
00;26;20;00 - 00;26;22;29
Speaker 1
Oh, you guys are agreeing. Amazing.
00;26;23;16 - 00;26;28;09
Speaker 2
Okay, last point is that, you know, we've got to say in person more often.
00;26;28;21 - 00;27;00;09
Speaker 3
It is 100%. It is more fun. I was just doing some stuff on packaging and you could see when people were like underwhelmed by what was happening with the packaging, which was so obvious that you could just call it out. And there was that very obvious, underwhelmed feeling like I was. And you don't see it as well in a line for sure.
00;27;00;09 - 00;27;31;02
Speaker 1
I feel like I kind of want to go back to this idea of customers being more comfortable or people, people being more comfortable behind a screen. I think that's really interesting and it's not really something I've thought about, but I think even when we think about remote working, presenting remote, like there's so many people who are just so much more comfortable doing things that might be quite nerve racking in person behind a screen.
00;27;31;11 - 00;27;44;18
Speaker 1
And I'm wondering like, do you guys have any examples where that has been more effective? Like, when has that been more effective? I know you get site specific clients. Yeah. Is there anything you can speak to on that?
00;27;45;12 - 00;28;03;25
Speaker 4
I think I think we have lots of examples. I'm just thinking, you know, right now we do a lot of on I'll call them mobile shop alongs, maybe we want to call them mobile safaris where we ask people to take take us along to the grocery store and think about a specific project where we wanted to know if they're noticing the new communications in the store.
00;28;03;25 - 00;28;36;05
Speaker 4
It was actually redesigned. There were new screens, new signage, new directions, lots of new information. And we were able to use our client list. We knew, you know, that that shoppers that went to that location often and we asked them just to go around the store, do their normal thing, and before they check in, get all their groceries at completely normal, which you couldn't have done in the days when we were observing, when they went to check in, say, before you check in now, we want you to do a little task for us and we can send them around the stores.
00;28;36;05 - 00;28;58;26
Speaker 4
Okay. Now to walk around the store, take pictures. What's different? Tell us what's different. Then we can say, okay, now go. Look, did you notice this? Did you notice that? And they might be like, Yeah, absolutely. I actually looked at the side of my shop during my shop, didn't realize it was new, but it was helpful. And then, you know, they'll leave the store will ask a couple more questions.
00;28;58;26 - 00;29;19;00
Speaker 4
They upload their selfie videos, very unmoderated interview, and then we can take some of those people once they get home and they've rethought it and bring them into an interview. So one, you get a lot of time with them, you got a lot of effort with them. But again, you have to remove that whole entire entire bias. So they got to do a shop more comfortably.
00;29;19;00 - 00;29;36;13
Speaker 4
They got to do their real shop. They were able to take an extra 10 minutes to go back to the store. And yeah, then when you call them, they are, you know, once you get great selfie videos, you always get great selfie video. Everyone's happy to take a selfie video, but when they come back, like you just see it on their face.
00;29;36;13 - 00;29;54;02
Speaker 4
Like, oh, like I didn't see that like that. That was so funny. I can't I can't believe I missed it. I go there every second day. I think a lot of that you wouldn't necessarily get if we were there in person and you know, it's hard to say. Would that would that shopper be as open if we were in person?
00;29;54;17 - 00;30;08;17
Speaker 4
Maybe. But we know post COVID that some people are not. And I think, one, they're comfortable, but two, they they some people are just not back to that that socializing want to be next to a stranger having that conversation.
00;30;08;17 - 00;30;38;22
Speaker 3
Can I say something that I notice actually is that people are definitely more comfortable online and they've noticed a difference between focus groups online. When I do focus groups online versus focus groups in person, when you're in person, you're less likely to be super transparent because you are for sure going to have all of your systems activated, whereas when you're online, you feel obviously more protected and you definitely feel more compelled to be a more transparent, right?
00;30;38;23 - 00;30;54;09
Speaker 3
Because you are more protected and there's no one right there next to you in your personal space. And I think people are actually a lot like they are not as afraid to be aholes online versus for.
00;30;55;19 - 00;30;57;21
Speaker 4
This good job, not swearing to these that.
00;30;57;23 - 00;30;58;18
Speaker 2
Yeah I just.
00;30;59;12 - 00;31;00;06
Speaker 1
I love that.
00;31;00;11 - 00;31;29;14
Speaker 2
There's also you get these nice these nice moments online sometimes where you know we did this one study on on baby food and you know, you end up with these videos with all these babies, which is like so much fun and it makes it real or, you know, the all of a sudden the parent takes out like you're doing it on food and they take out all the stuff out of their pantry and they take the camera and they show you the table and they go through, see, this is you know, you know, Doris, my baby.
00;31;29;14 - 00;31;50;19
Speaker 2
I don't know why I chose Doris as a name. And I don't think that's a good baby name. I'm sorry. I apologize. And Jenny, his baby's name is great. Beautiful baby name. Anyway, the baby loves her, you know, snacks. Anyways, you have these beautiful moments in people's homes. You have the handing off of the baby from one parent to another.
00;31;52;05 - 00;32;21;04
Speaker 2
There's nice impromptu moments. You know, we do a bit of banking interview where we were talking with with, you know, one partner and and and, you know, he's saying, oh, I don't remember where which, you know, savings account has X, Y or Z. And then he calls his his spouse into the room. And and they're having a whole conversation in front of you and you get that real visibility into how decisions are made, how that's relevant.
00;32;21;04 - 00;32;22;27
Speaker 2
Like, yeah, like who?
00;32;23;14 - 00;32;26;19
Speaker 1
What did you say, Denisa. So that's why I love them.
00;32;27;18 - 00;33;00;24
Speaker 3
Yeah, because facilities are good for a lot of things, but they're formal and I think sometimes people forget that they're formal and they formalize a certain, certain discussion and they formalize the way people are going to respond to you. And they definitely bring out the self defense mechanism a lot more than it happens online. In online I'm already protected by screen when I'm in person, I have to have my self defense mechanisms app and therefore I'm going to pull back.
00;33;01;16 - 00;33;08;25
Speaker 2
But, but then you see, you know, saying a great monologue, well will disarm those defenses.
00;33;08;25 - 00;33;20;27
Speaker 3
I agree. I completely agree. But you know, I think as the husband of the password, I see that this is it.
00;33;21;00 - 00;33;25;06
Speaker 4
This is my life.
00;33;25;06 - 00;33;36;08
Speaker 1
I do like it. We could probably talk about this forever. Like it's so interesting, this idea of what's lost and gained in either in either sort of method.
00;33;37;09 - 00;33;37;16
Speaker 3
Yeah.
00;33;38;03 - 00;33;57;14
Speaker 4
And I think as we, we think about the future for Meg and I know that's going to be like your next question or the one after. But as we think about that, you know, I was in Berlin only a few months ago for for call 360. And that was that was the whole entire conference. It was it was empathy in a tech world.
00;33;57;29 - 00;34;16;23
Speaker 4
I don't know if that's exactly the name, but every the whole entire conversation for three days was around how do we keep empathy? But how do we move with technology? How do we move with our consumers? And how do we kind of do that in a world where, you know, our clients get what they want and get the answers that they want.
00;34;16;23 - 00;34;38;26
Speaker 4
And it's still a customer centric approach. But, you know, again, we have our speed, we have our increased participants. We have a bigger line of sight into their lives. When you think about online journals and online diaries and mobile ethnography, is we now get more time with people than we ever had and we get more time with a single mom.
00;34;39;05 - 00;34;59;03
Speaker 4
That was the example I used yesterday. pre-COVID, you were in a focus for room. You you didn't have a single mom in the room. One was a single mom getting the time. You didn't have a single mom from rural Saskatchewan. I can tell you that. So, you know, you also have now increased your reach and you can talk to more of your consumer and a more new niche group.
00;34;59;18 - 00;35;19;21
Speaker 1
Yeah, that's really amazing. Like this idea that you're increasing representation by kind of demography. Gosh, I'm so tired of the word democratizing, but it's true. Like democratizing access to and yeah, to people who might not have had the time, frankly, to do this previously. Well, Julian, were you going to say something?
00;35;19;22 - 00;35;38;12
Speaker 2
Yeah, I was going to say, you know, it's even a difference from pre-COVID to now of pre-COVID. If you wanted to do online stuff, there were access issues to that, too. Not everybody had a stable Internet connection. You know, not everyone had a fast enough computer to run. Zoom, Zoom, didn't even, like really exist three or four years ago.
00;35;39;13 - 00;35;51;09
Speaker 2
And now everybody or everybody has as good access and we can get some more people in more places. And, and it definitely democratizes.
00;35;51;09 - 00;36;15;10
Speaker 4
And I think that's a good point in that yeah, we could have done online focus groups three years ago. We did a lot of online discussion boards, communities, those types of online activities, but one that technology wasn't, you know, COVID just sped up technology, development, innovation so quickly. But to it, it made us more comfortable doing that. So I could have done it online focus group three years ago.
00;36;15;26 - 00;36;40;29
Speaker 4
If I was asked to do an online folks group, I'd be like, Why can't we do in-person? Yeah, can we do it through a discussion forum? Can we do it another way? People, consumers were so awkward and we're now past that. So going back to that comfort idea. Right. But it's it's the people have changed, but also the technology, the innovation where we can go, all we can do is just so much better.
00;36;40;29 - 00;37;00;19
Speaker 1
And when we think about the innovation of, you know, virtual being able to use a lot of different sort of methods for qual, would you say that that is part of the reason it's easier to sort of integrate quant and qualitative research at DAG? Like would you say that technology plays a key role?
00;37;00;19 - 00;37;25;19
Speaker 3
Not a 100%. That makes it easier. First of all, you can tap into the quant like this starts with the most basic way, which is you can actually tap into the the plans of respondents and recruit them for a follow up call. That's number one. Easiest you can get. That's why behind the what it's like this and that's technology.
00;37;25;19 - 00;38;05;08
Speaker 3
That's one way. The second way is the fact that it just makes communications within teams and between teams way faster and way more efficient. So that's another way that technology plays a role. Also, the way we integrate, we integrate, integrate methodologies like they are. They're just meant to live together and breathe together. And the way we think about the recommendation is it's always sort of holistic, integrated, it's never then it's just going to go on, tell her story and the quality is going to go on until their story.
00;38;05;08 - 00;38;15;00
Speaker 3
It's always, what are we going to like? What is that sort of holistic story that we're going to tell, and what are those holistic recommendations that we're going to put forward?
00;38;15;00 - 00;38;39;03
Speaker 2
Yeah, we ran a study that started three weeks ago and was done one week ago, so it was two weeks from kick off to execute on two kind of final report delivery. And it was a Qualcomm study and this is just a huge plug for our upside platform because we were running the call in tandem with with the client.
00;38;39;25 - 00;39;11;02
Speaker 2
And as we're running the study and it was a very kind of relatively straightforward study of comparing to potential name options for a brand. But as as were running the qual as I'm doing the interviews I have the up for upside watching what the client respondents are kind of voting comparing you know how they're they're responding I'm able to adapt the discussion knowing that one of the concepts is reading, knowing that, okay, this is what we need to share more about.
00;39;11;08 - 00;39;30;09
Speaker 2
And that's all happening live. That's all happening in the moment. And then you know where we're getting on a call with the VP and were like, okay, what is the story? You know, all within two weeks? I don't think we could have done that six months ago or a year ago. Like that's how that's how much technology is is impacting what we do.
00;39;31;01 - 00;39;41;10
Speaker 1
It's really cool. I'm conscious of time, so we've got a little bit more time. And I want to ask you the hardest question of all, which is what is the future of call?
00;39;42;03 - 00;40;00;23
Speaker 4
One of the things so first, I think I think, you know, everything swings one way and has to swing back the other a little. And right now, you know, the world has swung highly to tech because it has to be in the tech space. We haven't been able to see consumers face to face in the last three years, especially not in Canada.
00;40;01;14 - 00;40;23;18
Speaker 4
But it will swing back. We're back in facility. We're in facility next week, the week after we're back. But I think the future call is there's going to be more innovation, there's going to be more tech, and we're going to do it better. You have so many great platforms that, you know, we work with that are developing amazing tools and inside of that.
00;40;23;18 - 00;40;44;15
Speaker 4
It's how do we how do we build within Digg and how do we innovate within Digg? And, you know, while we got you know, we've been very lucky that we were in the tech space pre-COVID and we stayed in the tech space. And obviously we grew you know, we've tripled in size in the last three years within our call team because we were ahead of that curve.
00;40;44;26 - 00;41;17;16
Speaker 4
It's how do you stay ahead of that curve? And, you know, one of the things that, you know, we've we spent a lot of time on is not just what technology we can use to to do online on online call, but it's also how we analyze our online fall. One of kind of the the I can't say the pitfall fall, but no matter how fast and easy you do it, you know, when someone says, hey, I want to collect 3000 videos, I look at them and say, Well, what are you going to do with those 3000 videos?
00;41;18;00 - 00;41;47;14
Speaker 4
Right. The analysis time is just so massive. So one at Digg specifically, I know we're looking at how do we build client studies with with more qual in them instead of having to do a big fall study? Can we do something that brings that consumer to life within our in our quantitative work? And one example of that and a plug not even for our platform, but a great a great partner is Canvas A.I., which is an emotional sentiment tracking tool.
00;41;47;28 - 00;42;09;02
Speaker 4
So we're able to now put more quality of voice to some of our quantitative work. Outside of that, there's, you know, there's eye tracking software now. There's tracking on people's phones, but also listening to their voice and their emotion. You know, right now on our upside platform, we're looking at ways that we're going to integrate more all into that.
00;42;09;02 - 00;42;34;28
Speaker 4
Stay tuned. And the last thing and then I'll be quiet, let Julian and Lisa talk is is I and you know, I just talked about Kaminsky and sense sentiment emotional sense but tracking by our analytics team this the work they're doing is just amazing and you know we've been working closely with them to look at how we can better analyze our our qualitative work using AI.
00;42;34;28 - 00;43;02;26
Speaker 4
And, you know, obviously, people are not going to go away. Qualitative is completely, completely, you know, it's it's reading it, understanding it, theming it, and then writing a story that often comes comes from from the feeling you got in the room. But if I can help us speed some of that up and help us get there, it will kind of I think that could potentially be a big game changer when you think the quality of research and what we can do.
00;43;03;27 - 00;43;09;06
Speaker 1
Julian Disney said that was such a great answer. Patricia, do you have anything to add?
00;43;09;16 - 00;43;12;21
Speaker 2
I mean, that's that's the quick point you have to follow.
00;43;13;17 - 00;43;16;15
Speaker 1
Denita, do you have anything to add to Patricia is.
00;43;17;05 - 00;43;46;05
Speaker 3
I honestly think my gut my gut tells me that Asia is going to change definitely some things and it's going to change how we potentially analyze, as Patricia says, I truly believe that. I mean, we threw it in as a joke, but I am very curious to see what happens in the first. I'm very curious. It's that I know it feels like a joke, but Zoom felt like a joke some years ago.
00;43;46;05 - 00;44;11;01
Speaker 3
Yeah. Yeah. Felt like a joke some years ago. But I don't think it's a joke. I honestly think there's I think there is something to be said about virtual reality. And I'm very curious to see how that's going to evolve. It's still in Nathan in a nascent stage, for sure. It's too expensive still, and it's kind of clunky still, but there's something to be said there.
00;44;11;16 - 00;44;22;23
Speaker 3
But the first step for sure is going to be dabbling a lot more with A.I. and having AI help us sort of do our job more efficiently.
00;44;23;02 - 00;44;26;07
Speaker 1
Julian, anything to add?
00;44;26;07 - 00;44;48;21
Speaker 2
I think we'll have to wait for Doris to be all grown up for the metaverse to start having a role. But no. And okay for anyone listening, they're all taking me to. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I think.
00;44;49;07 - 00;44;51;26
Speaker 3
You know.
00;44;51;26 - 00;45;16;03
Speaker 2
I think that, you know, the reality is the role of qual is going to is going to keep growing. We've all kind of acknowledged you've seen that we live in this very unpredictable reality. The type of research we did last year is the content isn't even the same as what we're doing this year. The world is a vastly different place.
00;45;16;03 - 00;45;40;22
Speaker 2
I don't even know what's what's going to happen tomorrow. And so if things change so fast, we have to stay close to our to our customers. We know brands and companies are being super vigilant, wanting to get the pulse of their customers. And so I think there's just a lot of room for Qual to grow, whether it's AI, the metaverse, I don't know.
00;45;40;22 - 00;45;43;21
Speaker 2
But but I know there's definitely going to be lots to come.
00;45;44;11 - 00;46;01;09
Speaker 1
Thank you guys so much for today. This has been very interesting. As someone who doesn't get to do call or talk about call in my everyday life, and I'm sure that the listeners are going to learn a lot. So thank you. And I'll talk to you soon. Tune in next week.
00;46;01;17 - 00;46;02;07
Speaker 3
Thank you.
00;46;02;16 - 00;46;03;03
Speaker 2
Thank you.
00;46;03;04 - 00;46;13;14
Speaker 1
Bye. Thanks for tuning in this week. Find us on LinkedIn at Digg Insights. And don't forget to hit subscribe for a weekly dose of fresh content.