As the qual brief, so the results...

Once upon a time, when the grass was greener, all qualitative research projects always started with the Client’s Brief

Briefs were very carefully prepared. I remember how Senior managers on the Client's side taught juniors how to write briefs. This process was given special attention, and for good reason

Now, more and more often, clients are approaching for research without any brief at all, and sometimes this turns into a disaster for both parties. I'll try to briefly explain why

Let's start with what a Brief is

A Brief is a document that defines the Client's requirements and expectations from the agency / researcher in the project requested

The Client’s Brief:

1. Provides the researcher with general context (category, company, brand, competitive environment)

2. Defines business, marketing, research objectives and the expected use of the results

3. Informs about the target audience

4. Defines research geography (countries, cities, etc.)

5. If there are specific requirements or preferences, describes expectations regarding methodology, timelines, preferred agencies or individuals for particular markets, etc.

6. Informs whether this is a tender or not

Receiving the Brief, the researcher:

>> delves into the essence of the project (remember that a researcher is not an employee of your company and has no idea what is going on there);

>> understands whether he or she can be useful and whether he or she wants to deal with this Client (yes, not only clients choose agencies; agencies / researchers also decide whom it makes or does not make sense to work with)

If the decision is made to participate in tender / do the project, based on the Client’s Brief a researcher prepares a Qual Research Proposal, having previously clarified all the necessary details

The Qual Research Proposal is the document that provides the Client with the Researcher’s vision of the way how to meet the research objectives and help the Client to solve their marketing objectives

(Qualitative research / researcher does not solve marketing objectives. We just help you making more effective marketing decisions providing deeper understanding of your target customers)

The Qual Research Proposal includes:

1. Marketing and Research objectives

2. Detailed research tasks, methodology, timelines, costs and payment terms 

After the agency / researcher's proposal is discussed with the Client and finalized, both parties start the project with the full understanding of what, why, what for and how we will do

The Brief and the Research Proposal are the main documents that define the agency's / researcher’s responsibilities. The Contract is a legal document, while the Brief and the Proposal are the documents we build all our future work on.

Any changes to the brief, additional tasks, new ideas, and requests that arise from the Client after the Proposal is approved are a subject to discussion, can cause changes to the project's timeline and/or cost, and may even lead to the project's cancellation. Therefore, responsible clients and agencies / researchers try to plan and discuss everything as accurately as possible in advance. And usually, when professionals work on both sides, everything goes well.

The Brief is an equally important document whether the researcher is working directly with the Client or is merely a fieldwork partner in one country for a research agency that coordinates the multicountry study

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Besides the formal brief that is crucially important to have I believe, there is one thing that is even more important

A qual researcher who does not understand Client’s marketing objectives is like a blind kitten that will never provide you with valuable results

That is why, ideally, a researcher should be briefed by the person who is making marketing decisions on the Client side

Personally, I especially appreciate clients, who give me an opportunity to talk to the key decision-maker & the team that will be using the results at the very stage of the project initiation. Because too often in my career I’ve seen formal briefs that were simply copy-pasts from the previous projects and completely irrelevant to the objectives of the given study

I perfectly understand that top-managers do not have time to prepare detailed formal briefs. So even more than a formal brief written, I appreciate meetings (face-to-face ideally, but online is fine as well if you are in another country / city). I'm sure that if one is truly interested in the research results, he or she will find a few hours to discuss what is needed, why and what for

And, in conclusion: The most important thing in qualitative research, starting from the Brief and ending with the Presentation of the results, is communication. Communication not only with customers, but also with the Client's team

So please, do not refuse to talk to your business partners. No official docs, emails, messages will ever compare to working side by side, from the very beginning to the very end of the project. That is why I am still a big fan of face-to-face qual, where I can talk closely both to the customers and to the clients

Hope to talk to you soon :)

Pleskova, your old-school qual researcher