Avoiding advertising research disaster: Advertising and the uncertainty principle

Abstract

This paper claims that despite innovation in research techniques, the majority of qualitative research still takes place through focus groups and in-depth single interviews. In response to valid criticism of these techniques, and following developments in the field of advertising, this paper proposes techniques to make sure these research methods are applied properly. This is necessary to avoid advertising research disasters — killing great advertising and validating bad advertising. The paper proposes three ways to ‘get the basics right’ and gives some guidelines for buyers of research to determine whether the researchers they hire apply the methods or not.