Articles
Solutions Guides Respondents Through the "Looking Glass"
By Bernie Whalen, Managing Editor Special Issues
September 17, 1982
Editor's Note: Solutions, Inc. was founded by Sharon Hollander and joined by Daniel Oromaner in 1982. Daniel Oromaner is currently President of The Qualitative Difference. This article has been edited for length.
Solutions Inc., a small firm in Sea Cliff N.Y., reports achieving vivid qualitative marketing research results with what it calls the "Looking Glass" technique.
"I have had advertising creatives come up and kiss me after focus groups and say, 'I can't believe you did that. That's the kind of thing I was trying to get at and I didn't have it quite right,'" said Sharon L. Hollander, president.
She started solutions five years ago, and even today only has five full time employees. But annual sales have hit $500,000 thanks to clients such as Warner-Lambert, General Foods, Kodak, Colgate-Palmolive, Mennen, and New York's Citibank, according to vice president Daniel S. Oromaner.
Both Hollander and Oromaner were trained as psychologists, but spent the early part of their careers in marketing research.
They seized on the idea of applying principles from the behavioral sciences and psychotherapy--along with projective techniques such as role-playing, Gestalt therapy, word association, and neurolinguistic programming--to focus groups, in-depth interviews, and other exploratory marketing research.
The technique (actually a variety of techniques) that emerged was called the "Looking Glass," named for the subject's experience in the "Alice in Wonderland" fairy tale. "We take respondents through the looking glass to see things in a different perspective," Hollander said.
For example, one of their techniques involves five steps:
- Lights are dimmed to break the mood.
- Respondents do deep breathing exercises to relax, increase alpha wave activity in the brain, and encourage creative thought.
- Eyes are closed.
- Respondents are instructed to imagine a "scene" and describe their senses. A scene could be the year 2000, an "ideal bank," putting on aftershave lotion in the morning, etc. Scenes can be abstract or product-related.
- Respondents are asked what they are doing in the scene--their daily activities, how they use the product, how they complete a transaction at a bank in the future, etc.
"We use a lot of metaphor and hypnotic suggestion to get respondents to think about what they are sensing," Hollander explains. "Then we can intensify a certain point to suit the client's needs."
"For example, if the client is looking for an ad copy point for a new brand of soap, we will focus on the respondent's sensation of smell while taking a shower. Or we might switch to a Gestalt technique and ask them how they would smell if they were a bar of soap."
She admits that some of the techniques used by her moderators also are used by personnel at other marketing research firms. "But we are the only ones using psychological techniques to the fullest extent," Hollander said.
"Most firms that run qualitative research use pretty straightforward techniques. They ask typical questions and the consumers offer typical answers from the stock 'files' in their brains. We go beyond that, make associations, and probe the unconscious."
"The leader or moderator is everything in a focus group or depth interview. Leadership brings out the energy of the consumers and he or she changes techniques to suit the particular research project."
Solutions' presentation has become one of the most popular at the annual Advertising Research Foundation conference. At this year's event, Hollander moderated a 20-minute version of a Looking Glass session. The attendees came up with dozens of alternative uses for simple plastic packing material. "You can imagine what we could have done in four hours or a day," she said.
The results of the Looking Glass technique are visible in advertising, retail stores, and service businesses. For example, New York's Citibank "Ten Star Card," that institution's version of the Master Card/Visa Card, was developed based on findings generated by Solutions' research, Hollander said.
And Casablanca Fans owes some of its success to Solutions. Advertising for the product was originally modern and sophisticated. Solutions discovered that such an image wasn't appealing to the manufacturer's prime market, which perceived the ceiling fan as a "throwback to the old days," Hollander said.
"The ad agency used that information to create a new campaign, one that emphasized the tried-and-true nature of ceiling fans," she said. "That seemed to be a turning point in the increasing popularity of Casablanca fans."
While it is difficult to describe the Looking Glass technique, Hollander feels the important point is what the technique is capable of generating, regardless of the purpose of the research.
"The big difference is that we use techniques that help respondents articulate their feelings. Thus we get clear, detailed, textured statements," she explains. "We add warmth and a personal element that is lacking in traditional qualitative research."
"There is more to conducting a focus group than getting a group of people together and asking them questions. It takes a lot of training and experience to clarify problems, get in-depth information from total strangers, and put it into terms the client can use."
Oromaner noted that the Looking Glass technique still is in the experimental stage. "It's hard to put it into words," he said. "I guess you could say we try to induce people into dreams, get them to relive experiences, hear noises, see situations, visit new places."
"Sometimes the effectiveness of the technique scares us. We've had people describe extramarital affairs--in detail--right in the middle of a focus group. That's how comfortable we make them feel."