ideaction

Qualitative Research in 2010. Technologies are merging. 80% of the population have an iPad - or microsoft's equivalent. Group discussions in the market research world are increasingly online. But those that do take place to face are increasingly making more use of newer technologies. Gone are the days of flip charts and post it notes. Instead the best moderators are using technology in clever ways to capture consumer responses instantly for faster more robust insights. Moderator or machine?

Well ultimately I believe you still need the skills of a trained moderator to unlock the truth behind people's emotions. But when you see software like childline's remixing tool in action we will all have to accept that technology could be used to re-invigorate how emotion is measured.

Imagine you are a brand owner trying to unlocking the a powerful emotional insight behind your brand. Traditional projective techniques are par for the course - personification, story-telling, brand scripts. All of these are useful methods that qualitative researchers use to dig a little deeper.

But the potential behind something like the emotion remixing tool is to genuinely put the power of projection in consumers' hands - literally. As a researcher I'd love to get my hands on a tailor made emotion remixer and use it in group discussions or depth-interviews as an engaging piece of stimulus that could bring real energy to a discussion.

Perhaps respondents are some way off being comfortable with this type of technology. But I believe the future of projective techniques could include using technologies as sophisticated as this....