Where is the disconnect? Is poor research to blame?

The problem is less about the research itself... it has more to do with the research cycle. Traditionally, the cycle is as follows:

Early: Stated Measures
Early in the development cycle, companies are, for good reason, hesitant to make a significant investment in a new product or a new strategy. Research, therefore, is typically limited to tools and techniques that are heavily dependent on stated measures - such as stated purchase intent scores. These techniques are appropriate when used as screening tools to filter out poor performing concepts. The shortfall is that, for concepts that perform well, stated purchase intent scores do not always translate into actual purchase behavior.

Late: Behavioral Measures
To get closer to predicting behavior, companies are using more sophisticated forecasting tools. Because these tools have historically been very expensive, they tend to happen later in the cycle, once a company has made more of a commitment to a concept... and, as such, they tend to have a vested interest in the concept's success. Another shortfall is that, while these tools are good at predicting behavior, they are not typically good at diagnosing that behavior (understanding why consumers are behaving in a certain manner).

Later: Behavioral Diagnostics
More and more companies are using applied ethnography techniques to understand shopping behavior. These techniques focus on studying behavior in natural surroundings in real time. So, for example, companies place cameras in a store and observe shopping, followed by qualitative interviews about the experience. While this can be very powerful, it cannot happen until a product is in the marketplace, so it has little value for researching new product concepts.

The challenge is to get the behavioral measures and the behavioral diagnostics EARLIER in the development cycle.

Virtual Ethnography allows you to do that.

It starts with virtual shopping, a quick and cost-effective way to test products in a store environment against a full competitive set. This allows you to predict behavior early in the cycle. Importantly, the technique allows you to see purchase measures not only for an individual product, but also the impact on other products in a company's portfolio and even in the entire category.

The next step is to take the benefits of ethnography - contextual inquiry (contextual in that it takes place in the actual environment) - and combine that with the speed/cost efficiencies of the virtual environment in real time.

That can happen with moderators observing the virtual shopping, and then probing respondents on the experience. Because the respondent has just completed the purchase decision, the process is fresh that person's mind. This provides a rich context for discussion.

For more information call or e-mail Brad Barash (800.800.2124 x232).