The Consumer Insights Handbook: Unlocking Audience Research Methods
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Overview
At its core, consumer insights research is fun. Fast paced, creative, and exciting, working in this field means constant interaction and engagement with people, concepts, and ideas. The work is dynamic and intellectually challenging, celebrating innovative approaches that lead to unique explanations of and solutions for important problems. Whether you are working on a media product or a strategic communication campaign, successfully reaching your audience and meeting your objectives requires good research.
The Consumer Insights Handbook flips the typical model presented in mass communication research textbooks to emphasize that data should be used to understand people as thoughtful, deliberative audiences. As such, research should be done with the goal of better understanding target audiences in a meaningful way. With this orientation in mind, these insight-driven research projects allow media practitioners and strategic communication professionals to tap into audiences’ wants, needs, and desires through messaging and products designed to resonate.
Guided by the author’s own experience in the field as well as guidance from current practitioners on the client, boutique, and agency sides, this book offers an accessible, thorough, and compelling perspective on how to plan for and complete consumer insights research projects from the initial RFP to the final presentation of findings. Each chapter includes a guide for how to conduct in-class research, quotes and recommendations from experts in the field, and case studies and real-world examples.
- Chapter key terms lists and comprehensive glossary
Table of Contents
PART I: PREPARATION
Chapter 1: Introduction and Overview
- What is Research?
- How We See the World
- Planning for Research Design
- Working on Teams
- How to Use this Book
- Key Terms
Chapter 2: Working with Clients
- General Best Practices
- Looking Good (And by “Good,” I Mean Professional)
- Confidence is Key. So is Humility.
- Getting Work Started
- Responding to RFPs
- Pitching New Business
- Understanding and Assessing Needs
- Business Objectives and Research Objectives
- Developing Actionable Research Questions
- Establishing and Working with Budgets
- Best Practices & Key Take-Aways
- Key Terms
Chapter 3: Secondary Research and Analysis
- Conducting Secondary Research
- Secondary Research Sources
- Non-Public Sources
- Public Sources
- Best Practices & Key Take-Aways
- Key Terms
Chapter 4: Applied Research Ethics
- Why This Matters
- Key Ethical Principles
- Applied Research Ethics
- Gaining Consent
- Anonymity versus Confidentiality
- Privacy Laws and Legal Implications
- Conducting Research Online
- Accurate Representation of Ideas, or How to Avoid Plagiarism
- Best Practices & Key Take-Aways
- Key Terms
PART II: QUALITATIVE RESEARCH
Chapter 5: Qualitative Research Design and Considerations
- Why Do Qualitative Research?
- Benefits
- Limitations
- Qualitative Methods
- Interviews
- Ethnographies
- Participant Observation
- Focus Groups
- Online Communities
- Ensuring Rigor
- Ways to Ensure Rigor
- Best Practices & Key Take-Aways
- Key Terms
Chapter 6: Qualitative Data Collection
- Writing an Effective Instrument
- Guide Structure
- Tips for Writing
- General Best Practices
- Record, Record, Record
- Data Collection: In the Field
- Conducting Interviews
- Conducting Ethnographies
- Conducting Focus Groups
- Conducting Qualitative Research Online
- Best Practices & Key Take-Aways
Chapter 7: Using Creative Exercises for Deeper Insights
- General Best Practices
- Generating Good Data
- Types of Creative Exercises
- Collage
- Drawings and Storytelling
- Bring Brands to Life
- Fill-In-The-Blank
- “Magic Wand”
- Creating Lists and Organizing Data
- Card Sorts
- Marketing Exec
- Best Practices & Key Take-Aways
- Key Terms
Chapter 8: Qualitative Data Analysis and Reporting
- General Best Practices: During Fielding
- General Best Practices: Post-Collection Data Analysis
- In the Debrief
- Topline Research Report
- Best Practices & Key Take-Aways
PART III: QUANTITATIVE RESEARCH
Chapter 9: Quantitative Research Design and Best Practices
- Why Do Quantitative Research?
- Benefits
- Limitations
- Basic Principles and Characteristics
- Correlation is Not Causation
- Standardization
- Hypotheses versus Research Questions
- Sampling and Samples
- Probability Sampling
- Nonprobability Sampling
- Error, Margin of Error, and Confidence Level
- Quantitative Research for Academics
- Best Practices & Key Take-Aways
- Key Terms
Chapter 10: Quantitative Data Collection
- General Best Practices
- Preparing to Write Your Survey
- Structuring Your Survey
- Screener
- The Body
- Demographics
- Editing Your Survey
- Writing Good Questions
- Different Types of Questions
- Basic Rules for Writing Questions
- Writing Good Responses
- Trend Studies
- Best Practices & Key Take-Aways
- Key Terms
Chapter 11: Quantitative Data Analysis and Reporting
- Good Preparation, Good Data
- Ensuring Data Accuracy
- Descriptive Statistics
- Weighting
- Checking on What Happens in the “Black Box”
- Statistical Models for the Non-Statisticians
- Conjoint Analysis
- Maximum-Difference Scaling (MaxDiff)
- Discrete Choice Modeling
- Factor Analysis
- Cluster Analysis
- Data Reports and Banners
- Debriefing and Data Analysis
- Preparing for your Debrief
- Debriefing
- Reporting Quantitative Research
- Best Practices & Key Take-Aways
- Key Terms
PART IV: REPORTING FINDINGS
Chapter 12: Writing Your Report
- Goal and Purpose
- Develop Your “Elevator Pitch”
- Organizing Your Thoughts
- Preparing your Outline
- Integrate and Synthesize Insights into Themes
- Plan your Signposting
- Bake in Transitions
- Flesh out your Recommendations
- Always Come Back to your Story
- Telling a Story
- Keep the Story Moving
- Share Data Strategically
- Focus on your Flow
- Stay Focused
- Report Sections
- Report Formats
- Best Practices & Key Take-Aways
- Key Terms
Chapter 13: Developing (and Designing) Your Deliverable
- Designing your Deliverable
- Make Sure your Story is Clear
- Make Signposts Clear
- Metaphors Matter
- Deliverable Formats
- Design Basics (Very, Very Basics)
- Designing your Deliverable
- Hierarchy
- Consistency
- Effective Use of Color and Contrast
- Presenting Data
- Forms of Data Presentation
- Guidelines for Presenting Data
- Best Practices & Key Take-Aways
- Key Terms
Chapter 14: The Client Presentation
- Goal and Purpose
- Preparation
- Know your Audience
- Know your Material
- Internalizing
- During the Presentation
- Wrapping Up the Project
- Back in the Office
- Best Practices & Key Take-Aways
- Final Thoughts
Danielle Coombs has done a wonderful job writing about research techniques that students can actually use, both as student researchers and eventual professionals. Students will enjoy reading this book.
The Consumer Insights Handbook is a much needed textbook for our discipline. Before now, we have never had a book dedicated solely to teaching our aspiring advertising and public relations practitioners the importance of research from an industry standpoint. Danielle Coombs has provided an accessible text for our students that’s comprehensive, yet easy to read. Every research methods and insights course in our field should be using this book.
- Title: The Consumer Insights Handbook: Unlocking Audience Research Methods
- Author: Danielle Sarver Coombs
- Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
- Print Publication Date: 2021
- Logos Release Date: 2021
- Pages: 248
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Ebook
- ISBNs: 9781538145531, 9781538145517, 1538145510, 1538145537
- Resource ID: LLS:9781538145531
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2025-04-22T02:25:55Z