Education and demonstration – Psychology
Reexamination Certificate
1998-02-24
2001-11-13
Martin-Wallace, Valencia (Department: 3713)
Education and demonstration
Psychology
C434S323000, C434S322000, C434S362000, C600S301000, C600S306000, C707S793000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06315569
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
This invention relates to an improved marketing research tool. Specifically, it relates to using a metaphor elicitation technique in conjunction with physiological function monitoring to determine a consumer's response to marketing input.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
In today's highly competitive economy, a company's survival depends upon the marketing manager's ability to make sound business decisions, to outguess competitors, to anticipate consumer needs, to forecast business conditions and to plan generally for company growth. Marketing research is a tool used to accomplish these tasks. Such research is also vital in order to effectively monitor and evaluate past business decisions. A productive and thriving business will be one which suits the interests of customers, thus effective marketing begins with the recognition of customer needs.
It is well established that most communication occurs nonverbally (Weisner, 1988; Knapp, 1981; Seiter, 1987). That is, people “say” and “hear” a great deal more through nonverbal rather than verbal means of communication. However, virtually all market research tools rely on verbal means of communication such as questionnaires, telephone interviews, face-to-face interviews and discussions or focus groups. Such market research tools do not measure thought processes which are occurring without or below awareness. Indeed, even processes which the customer is aware of are often not measured well due to misreporting or under reporting for a variety of reasons.
Because companies rely so much on verbally oriented research tools they often miss much of what customers “say” and “hear” nonverbally. Thus, companies often miss important opportunities to understand customers better and to communicate better with them. As a consequence, companies miss opportunities to better serve their customers.
Similar to the situation of a company miscommunicating with its customers, communication within a company can be poor. This can be particularly true when the communication concerns thoughts and feelings about various personnel issues such as diversity, compensation, proposed or existing organizational arrangements such as merging and dividing debts, creating new organizational structures, interactions between superiors and subordinates and so on.
Lastly, self communication can also be an important issue; that is, how does the manager or C.E.O. think their customers think. These pre-existing biases can serve to “color” interpretations of marketing data. With awareness of these perceptions, one may more appropriately conduct market research.
A means for bringing to a level of conscious awareness those thoughts and feelings that are ordinarily not evident or are not evident in a clear or precise way is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,436,830 to Zaltman. Zaltman discloses a Metaphor Elicitation Technique which utilizes various research techniques to create a visually and other sensory oriented method and apparatus for creating research for marketing campaigns or to validate the thrust of an existing marketing campaign to determine if it accomplishes its stated purpose, this technique can also be used to improve inter-office and self communication. The disclosure of U.S. Pat. No. 5,436,830 to Zaltman is herein incorporated by reference in its entirety.
The process and apparatus of MET is based on the establishment of metaphors by users. A metaphor is the understanding and experiencing of one thing in terms of another. For example, a person may see a picture of an American flag as reflecting a sense of patriotism and hence be representative of his or her commitment to an American auto manufacturer.
The MET technique engages internal images, (neural patterns which underlie thought and feeling) and external images, (pictures, sounds, tastes, etc.) which represent or convey internal states of mind. It does this through a variety of steps and processes at each step. All sensory images are important nonverbal means of communication. Multiple sensory images are also important in the present invention since one sensory image such as sight can trigger the experience of another sensory image such as taste. This kind of connection among senses is known technically as synesthesia.
One outcome of the MET technique is a set of stimuli such as concepts or ideas which express important feelings and thought in the form of metaphors, among other things. These metaphors draw on all sensory perceptual systems, but especially vision since two-thirds of all stimuli reaching the brain do so through the visual system.
These concepts or ideas can then be used to develop a consensus map which is a diagrammatic metaphor for representing and understanding the preferences, opinions, and feelings of the user. It describes the thinking of a particular group of users such as customers, office personnel, or management, by synthesizing the mental models of individuals into an overall diagrammatic metaphor. It is, in fact, the major end product of the MET apparatus and process and is the guide to marketing staffs in the creation of advertising campaigns or formulating other marketing decisions and actions, to administrators in dealing with various personnel issues or to managers in unveiling pre-existing biases or beliefs.
Thus the MET technique and its apparatus is unique in how it engages the neural processes of thought and feeling and allows their expression in the form of metaphoric images which engage visual and nonvisual sensory systems.
The MET comprises the following steps:
Step 1. Storytelling. The user describes the content of relevant visual images and how they are associated with the research topic for that user. The images selected for the baseline series of images for evaluation for a topic under study.
Step 2. Sorting Task. The user sorts images into meaningful groups.
Step 3. Identifying and Recording Sensory Metaphors. The user identifies what is and what is not a good sensory representation of the research topic, in terms of sound, shape, tactile sensation, color, taste, smell or scent, and emotional feeling.
Step 4. Further Construct Elicitation. A formal interviewing process in which pictures and other sensory stimuli are used to understand user thinking about the research topic. The constructs elicited in this step augment those elicited in Steps 1-3.
Step 5. Most Representative Image. The user indicates which picture (from a given set of pictures) is most representative of the research topic (e.g., the meaning of luxury).
Step 6. Verbal Description of Missing Images. The user describes relevant pictures that he or she was unable to find or obtain and explains their relevance.
Step 7. Identifying Opposite Images. The user identifies pictures that describe the opposite of the topic (e.g., what is not luxury).
Step 8. Company Perceptions of Users. Using sensory metaphors, the user describes what a company and/or key people, e.g. car designers, sales personnel, etc. think of them. (This is important since a user's response to a company is also influenced by this perception.)
Step 9. Critical Message to the Company. The user describes the single most important message they want to convey to a company on the research topic. The user selects the sensory images that best reflect this message.
Step 10. Surprise to the Company. The user describes which of his or her feelings or thoughts on the topic a relevant company is least prepared to hear. The user selects the sensory images that best convey this information.
Step 11. The Mental Map. The user creates a map or a causal model using the constructs which have been elicited to express the user's overall thing about the research topic.
Step 12. Creation of a Summary Image. The user with the aid of a technician creates a single, still image (visual) which best summarizes the meaning of the research topic.
Step 13. Creation of a Vignette or Mental Video. The user, with the aid of a technician creates a movie-like vignette or video expressive of the research topic. This is done using animation
Harris Chandra
Martin-Wallace Valencia
Roberts Abokhair & Mardula LLC
Zaltman Gerald
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