In the previous post, How to Embrace Cultural Listening in Market Research and Drive Relevance with Diverse Audiences, we talked about the why of cultural listening (to capture more nimble, creative and applicable insights) and the how of recognizing culture (starting with ourselves). Now, it’s time to look at four approaches to more culturally intelligent insights that can be immediately applied to your research. This will enable you to explore participants’ cultural realities ethically, intentionally and skillfully and learn how those realities impact what participants think and feel—and ultimately, how they act.
To make the most of cultural listening, you need to start at the beginning of a project. First, think about the recruit; who are you really talking to? Even a well-run recruit can miss out on important perspectives if it doesn’t include intentional safeguards and thoughtful benchmarks for cultural diversity.
There are two useful questions to ask to ensure a culturally informed recruit. First, who is missing? Is this a mobile-friendly recruit, or does it require that participants have access to a computer and the internet? Does the recruiter have multi-lingual capabilities? Will the recruiter rely on respondents seeking out the opportunity to contribute to your research, or will they reach out in creative ways to access harder-to-reach groups to proactively address audience composition and include more representative voices? How a recruiter reaches out to participants, being mindful of accessibility to technology and sensitivities around the subject matter, can affect how culturally informed a recruit is.
Second, consider not only what is missed, but what might be gained by a culturally informed recruit. Are there participants who would offer a uniquely helpful perspective on your topic? Thinking creatively about this question will help to shape a recruitment that not only provides the minimum respondent requirements, but also offers dynamic, rich and even unexpected insights.
Questions, asked the wrong way, can shut down respondents’ unique cultural voices. By adjusting the mode of inquiry (but keeping primary objectives top-of-mind), you can encourage participants to share their “inside voice”–the authentic voice they use with their own cultural group, instead of the “outside voice” that is often de-personalized for public display.
First, think through how best to conduct research and how it should be tailored to your project’s specific needs. Some research, such as exploratory projects that require nuance and storytelling, lend themselves to open-ended, complex and even ambiguous questions. Highly tactical work that requires direct answers–such as message or concept testing, segmentation, etc., benefit from more concrete cultural insights such as discourse analysis or sociolinguistics.
Once the best application of culture-first analysis is identified, make space for authentic cultural perspectives, starting with the discussion guide. Reaching out to culturally-informed experts to help shape questions will curb the natural tendency to ask questions “your way,” and help embrace the voice of the participant by allowing them to determine when the whole story has been told–even if that deviates from the outline set for interviews.
This kind of work requires moderation that can skillfully guide respondents through complex, fluid and personal conversations and still stay on track with research objectives.
The first and most important aspect of moderating culturally insightful interviews is how a moderator translates the research into the participant’s own language. A skilled moderator will hold strategic objectives up as landmarks to navigate through, not as the final destination. They will prioritize building a safe space in which respondents are at ease and feel free to explore their own experiences without pressure to “get somewhere.” Be aware that building a safe space may require a moderator to schedule longer sessions.
Second, there is often a tendency to look for a moderator who looks like participants. When a moderator is part of the participant’s group, it may make a safe space easier to create, but a skilled moderator finds common ground, allowing participants to open up, regardless of ethnicity or other identity characteristics. Ask yourself, though, whether the topic is particularly culturally sensitive.
Here’s the listening part of cultural listening: How to recognize clues about a respondent’s culture. Sometimes, it’s clear. For example, an individual references “how we do it” in their geographic area or religious group, for example. But most of the time, culture is more subtle.
To pick up on cultural clues, you have to put aside your agenda—and advocate for bringing diverse perspectives into research analysis. Research objectives, critical questions and tally-counting distract us from hearing the story a respondent is telling. It can be difficult to trust the process, but it is the foundation of effective cultural listening.
The clues to look for are many and varied, but here are a few:
When you have recruited thoughtfully, written a discussion guide that is culturally informed and allows for the respondent’s “inside voice” and have selected a moderator who is skilled in navigating complex cultural conversations, you’ll be equipped to identify the insights that offer grounded and realistic opportunities for a brand to connect to consumers, right where they are.
Of course, these considerations are only the beginning. We all do research in our own ways, with our own toolbox that we’ve developed over the years. We all bring our own experiences and priorities to the table. One might say we all have our own research culture that’s defined by all the little aspects of what makes us… us. But that only means each of us has something valuable to contribute to the development of cultural listening in market research.
At Escalent, we understand diverse audiences. How to reach them. How to engage them. How to translate their stories into insights that become sticky at companies. And how to help clients nurture deep, culturally intelligent and mutually beneficial relationships with them as the ultimate competitive advantage. Contact us to learn more.