Qualitative Market Research: A Comprehensive Guide [Paperback]

Hy Mariampolski (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0761969454 | ISBN-13: 978-0761969457 | Publication Date: August 21, 2001 | Edition: 1

Qualitative Market Research follows through a complete research project from the perspective of both user and practitioner. In this respect, it can be used as both a continuous teaching text and training manual, or individual sections may be consulted to enhance knowledge of `best practices' and improve productivity in any specific research application. Section one begins with an overview of the history and philosophy behind the practice of qualitative research, using qualitative or quantitative approaches, organising qualitative research (particularly those in `practice' such as research consultants), qualitative research applications (including product development, branding and advertising) and the varieties of qualitative research

Editorial Reviews

Review

"It is the ultimate training guide, mixing scholastic rigor with a very readable style, geared to serve as an encyclopedic reference." 

(Anne Ward )

". . . a comprehensive survey of the topic . . . a complete resource and a fundamental yet creative cookbook . . . Mariampolski offers detailed suggestions on how to effectively set up each particular type of project with step-by-step guidelines on how to proceed at each stage along the way. . . . It will be very interesting to those who wish to work in marketing, advertising, or research."

(Journal of Advertising Research )

About the Author

Hy Mariampolski is Managing Director of QualiData Research Inc. (www.qualidataresearch.com), New York and San Francisco. Hy holds a Ph.D. from Purdue University and has held academic appointments at Indiana University, Kansas State University, Yeshiva University and Hunter College of the City University of New York. He has conducted qualitative market research studies for a wide range of clients such as Hallmark Cards, Citibank, KPMG, The Clorox Company, Avery-Dennison, Colgate-Palmolive, Motorola, Moen, Johnson + Johnson, J. Walter Thomson, Young and Rubicam, Moulinex, Cognac Hennessy and Nissan Motors. 

Product Details

• Paperback: 328 pages
• Publisher: Sage Publications, Inc; 1 edition (August 21, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0761969454
• ISBN-13: 978-0761969457
• Product Dimensions: 9.8 x 5.8 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #347,825 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Thorough, enagaging - useful for new researchers as well as experienced professionals. Great basis for team workshopping., January 15, 2006

By 

D. Stuart "Researcher at Kudos" (Auckland NZ) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Qualitative Market Research: A Comprehensive Guide (Paperback)

Hy Mariampolski is an inspiring man - and both generous and energetic in spreading the word about qualitative techniques and ethnography. It is refreshing to read such a well-written guide without having all the self-promotional baggage that litters too many practitioners handbooks.

For a start, I find his history of qualitative techniques a great place to start this volume. As a synopsis of our professional history this is colourful, accurate and useful in contextualising why researchers do what they do.

He then rolls through the big questions - when to use qualitative research, which techniques to choose, the planning of projects (including a thorough section of choosing & screening respondents) and then the juicy section: running interviews or focus groups.

Here, Mariampolski makes us feel right at home. He's instructive without being didactic, and he speaks in a common-sense manner, peppering his advice with pertinent examples and a few illustrations. He includes a very useful chapter on the special considerations of youth research, multicultural research, interviewing business executives and covering particularly sensistive topics.

The final main section is on the analysis of qualitative information, and the presentation of this. Again, Mariampolski speaks directly and usefully.

Overall I'd say the book is pitched mostly at newer researchers, and at those who are contemplating a typically fascinating career in qualitative research, but this shouldn't stop a more senior researcher from going through the easily read 300 pages and making notes: even to check their own techniques and consider new ideas.

The book is current (2001) and would make an excellent basis for a set of in-house training workshops for the research team. It is well worth the purchase. I wish all research texts were this clear.

3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars FIVE WHYS BEFORE ONE HOW !, September 8, 2007

By 

Rodney Blanckenberg (Auckland New Zealand) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Qualitative Market Research: A Comprehensive Guide (Paperback)

The break-through Japanese management researcher Ishikawa,What Is Total Quality Control?: The Japanese Way (Business Management) whose work was popular in the West in the 1960's as the 'Fish Bone' Diagramme, had a rule. Before you asked 'how'(you were to do anything) first you exhausted the 'why' (it should be done at all or on a particular project or at a particular time).

We have to disclose up-front that One Big Idea Consulting Limited NZ has been training and educating managements around the globe at board level in the Ishikawa philosophy for two decades... as it applies to marketing research, creative branding and intergrated R&D. We are biased. No doubt about that.Guide to Quality Control Ishikawa has legs into the 21st century !

This Ishikawa focus, highlights the flaw of this otherwise quite decent novice guide to marketing research in its so called 'qualitative' guise. Too much 'how' and not nearly enough 'why'.

Wendy Gordon's Good Thinking: A Guide to Qualitative Research is much more to the point... and much more in line with Ishikawa skepticism. For skeptical researchers with a few hundred projects behind their focus groups, observation windows and discussion panels and open-ended questionnaires, Gordon stands out as a veteran consumer researcher who tackles the really tough 'WHY' issues beyond the run-of-the-mill 'HOW'. Other than that, we have no quarrel with the Miriampolski content such as it is. For the beginners it is an OK starter, before you graduate to Gordon and tough-test your thinking.

The key question is not so much as 'HOW' to apply one other research technique in the tool-box. The really critical issue is 'WHY' should one or other research project be done at all ! Gordon digs much deeper than Miriampolski in trying to answer the 'WHY'.