In-Home Research

Recently following a presentation on "Keeping the Pipeline full," we had a length discussion concerning the use of In-Home Research. I was asked how I utilized the home for research. While there are probably many ways beyond the typical Home Use and Habits & Practices types of studies, I usually classify my additional in-home research into three additional categories. These categories are generally devoted to qualitative data. The categories are: In-Home Group discussions, In-Home Observations, and finally a technique called, "Be A Robot For A Day," or sometimes called a Consumer Director Test.

I covered the "Be A Robot For a Day," in detail in my Views of January 3, 1998.

In-Home Observation is a good technique to learn and understand a particular household task. All too often we think we know how a particular task is performed. It has been my experience that we generally view a specific task as being performed in a single manner utilizing a common protocol and supporting materials. In my days at Procter & Gamble, we had a training program called the "Consumer Encounter Program," which was aimed at exposing new employees to the consumer and exposing them to various ways in which the consumer can help you do your job.

Once a year in the "Consumer encounter Program," we would have an early dinner for the new employees. After which we divided the group into teams of two and sent them to a specific home to observe the homemaker doing a specific task such as doing laundry, washing dishes, or cleaning floors. Each team was to report back in two hours and participate in a debriefing session. The interesting part of the return was to see just how quickly each team would report that we sent them to a really unusual homemaker. She did not do anything like she was supposed to do. They quickly learned that there are many ways to do a single task and it is in their best interest to know just how these tasks are performed and under what circumstances. I highly recommend routine visits to the places where your products are used, be it the home, office or wherever.

The "In-Home Group Discussion" technique is a replacement for the conventional focus groups. The problems I have with focus groups are many but for the time being I'll mention two. First, they are expensive. Second, we have a group of 8 to 10 participants all of whom are strangers which leads to far too much role-playing rather than a pure expression of beliefs and actions. An In-Home Group Discussion costs about $150 as compared to about $3,000 for a focus group. In the In-Home Group Discussion, the participants are friends or at least acquaintances. This greatly reduces the tendency to role-play or position oneself as the expert. Also, in the In-Home protocol the back room is eliminated. The visitors are sitting among the respondents and become an active part of the research. There are other more subtle reasons for preferring the In-Home Group Discussions but these two at present are substantial.

Note, while I do not believe that the In-Home Group Discussion technique should completely replace the focus group, I do believe that a majority of times the research is better served by the In-Home technique. The cost and rapid availability of this approach encourages the use of the consumer in our decision making. Try it, you will like it.