Doing more with less

What to expect?

Recession can prompt unusual levels of creativity.

With constraints to deliver more impactful research within a shorter time frame and lower budget, qualitative researchers need to take maximum advantage of their creative skills by crossing the boundaries of their discipline. The staged

innovation approach of Air France and KLM to develop new transfer concepts illustrates how to move beyond the barriers of time, methods and professions.

Introduction: difficult times require a changing mindset

Turning the threat of recession into an opportunity The start of the global recession is characterized by the fall of Lehman Brothers on September 15th, 2008. The on-going economic uncertainty we have been facing since, is affecting

business and public sector alike, causing both threats and opportunities. The wave of bad economic news is eroding confidence and buying power, driving consumers to adjust their behaviour fundamentally and perhaps permanently. Throughout the recession, consumers sought

out and were exposed to a growing array of tools, techniques, programs and emerging technologies – from list-making and comparison sites to stepped-up loyalty and rewards programs – to help manage spending and maximize savings. This more thoughtful approach to buying has evolved into an appreciation for cheaper brands, new channels and formats while consumers are even learning to do without whole categories of purchases (PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP and Kantar Retail, 2010). In every recession marketeers find themselves in poorly charted waters because no two downturns are alike. Companies need to understand changes in consumer behaviour and fine-tune their strategies according to evolving consumption patterns (Quelch and Jocz, 2009).

The confrontation with many uncertainties increases the need for research, as business is seeking every bit of data to close a deal or find lucrative markets. In addition to the severe threats caused by recession, opportunity also abounds, as economic downturn can be the catalyst to make organisations even more relevant, producing a return for the business. Srinivasan, Rangaswamy and Lilien already introduced the construct of „proactive marketing‟ in the International Journal of Research in Marketing in 2005. Their research indicates that firms who develop an intense marketing response during recession can actually improve both market and business performances in comparison to firms who cut back, waiting for the recession to pass. Brad Bortner perfectly articulates the paradox market research agencies are facing as a result to the economic downturn in a Forrester report written at the beginning of the recession (Bortner, 2008):“Fewer dollars will be available for new studies, while the business will demand new ideas more than ever.”

The direct connection between uncertainty and the need for research is changing the expectations of organisations towards researchers; they need to do more with less.

The challenge of providing better results faster and at a lower price is prompting unusual levels of creativity in the research industry.

Increased expectations confront researchers with their boundaries Although the uncertainty affects market research as a whole, we believe qualitative researchers

can play a central role in increasing the business impact of research, not only based on their skills, but also because the focus in research is shifting from representative to relevant (Verheggen and van Slooten, 2011).

The rise of Social Media generated a move towards the use of data which has not been collected in accordance with traditional market research methods. New tools allow researchers to connect with more consumers, over a longer period of time, and to integrate a variety of techniques to generate a holistic view on the lives of consumers.

Reports from moderated research blogs and communities are not representative according to the definitions of market research, but naturally cannot be ignored on account of the numbers alone. With constraints to deliver more impactful research within a shorter time frame and lower budget, qualitative researchers need to tap

into the opportunities provided by new technological tools and take maximum advantage of their creative skills by crossing the boundaries of their discipline.

In an innovation project to improve the transfer experience for frequent flyers of Air France and KLM, we challenged the following boundaries to increase the business impact of the research:

• Boundary of time - How can we build a bridge between past research on a topic and the current information needs? How to design the approach for impact now and in the future? How to conduct research faster and at the same time increase the opportunity to truly connect with consumers?

• Boundary of methods - How to transcend the boundaries between qualitative and quantitative research? A hybrid methodology allows you to approach the research question from multiple angles and gain more knowledge from the same project.

• Boundary of professions - How to learn from other disciplines on communicating results for maximum impact? Which techniques can we apply to really get to know our stakeholders? In the redefinition of roles, we even broaden our scope to evaluate the role of consumers in research.

With this paper we want to trigger qualitative researchers to move beyond time, methods and even the boundaries of professions by sharing examples of the approach we applied in the co-creation of transfer concepts for Air France and KLM.

Case: My Transfer for Air France and KLM

For most travellers the „transfer between

connecting flights‟ is a phase in their journey they would happily skip. Transfer flights are chosen mainly because there is either no other option available or travellers need to make a trade-off between time and costs. It is crucial for airport

and airline companies to understand the needs, expectations and emotions of those travellers.

This is particularly relevant in developing delightevoking moments and in adding something positive to moments like a transfer, which is characterised by negative emotions. Increasing the focus on the customer experience is relevant for Air France and KLM, as major airlines continue to struggle in the recession. In addition to further improving this experience to increase loyalty, there might also be an opportunity to develop additional business activities in the transfer journey. To gain insight and to develop and validate new concepts to optimize transfer services, the Customer Insight team and the

R&D Customer Ground Experience team of Air France and KLM connected with their frequent travellers in a staged innovation approach.

The kind of insights which can inspire groundbreaking consumer-relevant innovation can be timely and costly to generate. Traditional methods often require a lot of observations or face-to-face time with consumers and run the risk of merely giving specific answers to known questions, rather than exploring peoples‟ lives looking for inspiration.

The backbone of this project, a Market Research Online Community (MROC), involves different types of frequent flyers and integrates a variety of plug-ins like a personal Multimedia ethnography blog and an Ideation tool to match the specific objectives of each stage. An MROC is a relatively cost-efficient answer to more complex research questions as it connects more people over a longer period of time while facilitating in-depth discussions. MROCs were developed as a research methodology to take advantage of the characteristics of modern consumers, matching their social media behaviour and emphasizing the dialogue between brands and consumers.

InSites Consulting defines an MROC as “a small group (up to 150) of highly engaged people joined

together by a common passion, connected online for a longer period, who are systematically engaged by applying various social media techniques for different business objectives, especially co-creation or even collaboration”. By definition, MROCs are not representative, as they work best with participants who identify with the topic and/or the brand hosting the platform (De Ruyck et al., 2010).

In the co-creation of new transfer concepts we applied the following 3 steps:

Figure 1: Overview of the staged innovation approach

1

Insightment

In a first stage, the research community was used to detect new needs and frictions from

transfer passengers. We started with Multimedia ethnography (Verhaeghe, Van den Bergh & Colin, 2008); 39 frequent flyers reported their transfer experience on a personal blog on the community. Through 400 observations in text and pictures we were immersed in the world of the transfer passenger. The meaningful observations from this blogging stage were further shaped in the discussions on the research community. The blog stories and community discussions were analysed through info structuring and pattern detection while visual analysis principles (Pink, 2007) provided understanding in the pictures. This phase resulted in 68 insights combined into 10 insight platforms.

2

Ideation and concept development

During a 3-week ideation and concept development community, another group of 46 frequent travellers joined forces in generating over 450 ideas and comments, resulting in 32 new transfer concepts. The MROC environment is particularly stimulating for idea-generation

exercises; consumers receive challenges based on the detected insights and can build further on each other‟s ideas to make them more relevant. With these creative consumer tasks, it is crucial to provide a stimulating environment by also discussing trends and best practices . As gamification elements have proven to increase participant engagement in MROCs (De Ruyck and Veris, 2011), we added a countdown to the challenges, addressing the competitive nature of people to come up with as many ideas as possible in a limited time frame. No competition without a reward: the most popular ideas were visualized by the industrial designer in our project team.

3 Quantitative validation During a concept selection workshop, the four consumer-generated concepts showing the

highest relevance for both travellers and Air France and KLM were integrated in a quantitative idea screener. The results guided a workshop to re-write the concept boards and develop the final proposition.

In every stage, we challenged the current status quo, making this case a perfect illustration of how qualitative research can re-invent itself.

Throughout the paper we‟ll refer to specific elements of this case study to show how qualitative researchers can move beyond the boundaries of time, methods and professions to increase the business impact of research.

Crossing the boundary of time

Increasing impact by going back in time There is no lack of data in the business world; in addition to research reports from the past and consumergenerated content on social media, an increasing number of organizations is also retaining information

from their customers as a „by-product‟ of their activities. Customers do not only know that data like flight bookings and preferences are collected, they also expect airline companies to use this knowledge; for example by applying a personalized approach or feature recommendations. It is important to address market research as an element of this „big data‟ reality; research studies are set up in isolation too often. At the research agency‟s side, the challenge is to keep surprising clients with even more results and recommendations. To move from

„insight‟ to action, research should not only focus on the here and now ; it should close the gap with the past to understand how to be successful in the present. In order to be truly impactful, results from one project should built on existing knowledge. However, a database with all existing insights on a topic is often lacking. It is key to link parts of unstructured information and qualitative researchers have the skills to cross this boundary.

Figure 2: Illustration of how we crossed the boundary of time

The Customer Insight team and the R&D Customer Ground Experience team of Air France and KLM are conducting research in order to provide its passengers with the best service at a continuous pace. Although previous research was not focussed on the transfer process, there already was a lot of knowledge available spread across different reports.

Therefore we organized a workshop at the

beginning of the project to connect the dots with previous research. In fact, we applied similar techniques that qualitative researchers use in info structuring: each participant to the workshop was asked to go through the previous research and had to pick the three most important transfer learnings from each report. For each finding, we further probed to detect the insight explaining the finding.

This exercise was wrapped up by clustering the insights based on the findings across research reports. It is an illusion to think that all information is explicitly captured. Often, marketing decisions

Projective techniques, typically applied to reveal emotions of research participants, can also be applied to our clients.

Based on personification techniques we developed a board game to place the Air France and KLM team in their customers‟ shoes, allowing us to map all the current assumptions about their needs. The team members were all assigned a persona representing a typical passenger. During the board game, they had to come up with needs and problems their persona could have during transfer. In order to stimulate out-of-the-box thinking, they were given probing cards revealing more information about the persona. This could be both a more intrinsic characteristic of the persona (e.g. always being up to date with the latest technologies) and contextual information (e.g. returning from a 3-week long business trip and missing the family).

are made based on the assumptions marketeers have about their client. In order to also capture this more implicit information within the company, qualitative research can help us by bringing marketing assumptions in the organization to the surface.

Figure 3: Board game

The workshop lead to a knowledge map summarizing all existing insights, knowledge and assumptions present in the organisation before starting the actual insightment (phase 1). The Connecting the dots workshop resulted in 26 insights leading to the definition of 5 consumer insight platforms. As a result, we could focus on the blind spots in the knowledge map during the research. Given that it‟s not always obvious to proof the ROI of such research studies, this approach also allowed us to indicate the added value of new research by comparing the knowledge present at the start of the project with the insights gained during the observation with frequent travellers. This observation phase helped us to discover 68 insights, 42 of which were new, which is a 61% increase. Five more insight platforms could be added.

Moreover, the research also rejected 6 of the 26 assumptions which were generated during the workshop. It is clear that by tapping into knowledge and assumptions from past research, we

can increase our added value in the present.

Faster, better, stronger Market Research Online Communities are typically conducted for a longer time span (3 weeks to on-going).

The asynchronous longitudinal nature of communities has several advantages:

First of all, it allows us to go beyond one single feedback moment of our customer.

Knowledge gained in a first stage can be applied immediately, which automatically gives the discussions more depth.

Moreover, it is also a faster way to turn around research results.

Based on the initial findings, actions can be defined and immediately also checked and improved by consumers.

Secondly, it allows us to get more out of the moment.

There is an increased opportunity to connect. As not only the consumers but also the Customer Insight team and the R&D Customer Ground Experience team at Air France and KLM have access to the MROC whilst it‟s live, this increases the engagement within the team.

The transparency of the methodology allows stakeholders to follow the conversations of the participants and to probe on important topics.

Tools like Daily Consumer News, Highlight Mailing and Intermediate Update Sessions manage the efficiency of staying in touch with your community. By engaging stakeholders with these tools, they are more likely to act upon the results of the study (De Ruyck et al., 2011).

Daily consumer news The Air France and KLM team was kept up to date with the most striking and refreshing consumer stories of the day. Seeing pictures of transfers and reading the transfer stories from the minds of consumers allowed them to better connect with their target group. The „opportunity to engage‟ was also extended by allowing each team member to follow a passenger from packing his luggage all the way to his/her arrival at destination.

Figure 4: Example of highlight mailing

Highlight mailing During the Ideation & Concept development, the involvement of the client team was vital to stimulate the frequent flyers in their generation of relevant ideas. A communication plan was set up to evoke curiosity and motivate the Customer Insight team and the R&D Customer Ground Experience team of Air France and KLM to clear some time in their busy schedules to visit the community and join the Intermediate update sessions. This communication plan took full advantage of the excitement generated during live interaction moments, by sending debrief pictures and quotes of participants, while also sharing teasing insights.

Intermediate update sessions

To keep in touch with the ideas and discussions on the Ideation & concept development community, InSites Consulting organized weekly update sessions, sharing top level results with Air France and KLM, facilitating an online brainstorm to focus and probe on surprising elements. This close connection allows us to tap into another advantage of MROCs: given the longitudinal connection, we can adjust the conversation guide at any given moment in time based on what we are learning, supporting an agile research design. In conclusion, qualitative researchers should embrace

longitudinal research approaches allowing you to not only conduct impactful research in a quicker way but also to get more out of this valuable moment of consumer connect.

Crossing the boundary of methods

The roots of marketing research lie in the US polling industry of the 1930s and George Gallup‟s conviction that one could anticipate the voting intention of millions of voters nationwide by asking a representative crosssection of the public (Worcester, 1983). Qualitative market research as we know it also originated in the US under the title „motivational research‟ in the 1940s, based on psycho-analytic principles of identifying unconscious or repressed needs, notably through indepth clinical-style interviews with small samples of consumers. After emerging with promises of psychoanalytic insight, it succumbed to warnings about its statistical unreliability and subjectivism, before entering the era of love and understanding, and the time of the creative consumer. It then expanded, but some argue „dumbed down‟, until it had reached the current stage where the multi-source, interactive, emotional, ethical consumer-cum-king has taken over (Cooper, 2007).

Figure 5: Illustration of how we crossed the boundary of methods

While differentiating between quantitative and qualitative skills is favourable for the quality of the research, we can‟t be limited by thinking in silos. Too often we think in terms of types of data (textual, visual and numeric) and data collection methods (surveys, discussions, observational research), while the strength is often in a fusion of research techniques (Verhaeghe et al., 2010). But how to make a quantitative researcher comfortable with qualitative research and vice versa? Are we - as qualitative researcher - not too often afraid to cross the boundary with quantitative research? In our search for new innovation during the transfer process, we created

two hybrid research design; the one where we analysed qualitative data with a quantitative mindset and the other where we integrated emotions, typically a goal of qualitative research, in a quantitative concept screener.

Quantitative skills in qualitative research Although qualitative research is conducted on a non-representative sample, is it still possible to quantify the data.

For example: during the observation (blogging) stage of the research, we collected over 1000 consumer stories, each highlighting different aspects of the transfer experience. Each of the stories was tagged according to an analysis framework. This was not only the start of the info structuring, but a deliverable by itself. We uploaded all the tags on post level in a Consumer story dashboard. This is an online reporting tool for visual & unstructured information which allows the qualitative researcher to intuitively analyse qualitative data in a quantitative way. Once the results were uploaded, we could easily compare the rich input on many dimensions like type of airport, stage in the transfer process and type of frequent flyer traveller, without the need of any statistics. With a simple drag & drop, the different dimensions were visualized, making a very intuitive tool for qualitative researchers to work with.

Moreover, it allowed us to quantify which need was most prominently present in the consumer feedback but also to compare the stories of for example Air France vs. KLM passengers.

Analysing the results with a quantitative mindset via this dashboard allowed us to prioritize qualitative insights and compare them for different target groups in a much easier way considering our large sample of observations and consumer stories.

Figure 6: Consumer story dashboard

Qualitative skills in quantitative research Similarly to the previous challenge, we also looked for

ways to bring qualitative aspects into quantitative research. We closed the research project for AIR France and KLM with a quantitative idea screener of the new concepts that were developed based on the gathered insights. One of the main goals in qualitative research is to grasp the irrational, more emotional customer. But what about measuring emotions in

quantitative research? In many cases, measuring emotions in quantitative research is done in a very rational way by asking people to indicate which emotion they feel. Also, one can wonder to what extent consumers are aware of all their emotions and if they are even able to answer this question directly. However,

in this project we experimented with three alternative ways of measuring emotions, in order to see whether we could also reach this emotional depth with quantitative research; through „dual tasks‟, „indication under time pressure‟ and a „picture collage‟, benchmarked against a direct indication of emotions.

Both the dual-task methodology as the time pressure measurement find their grounds in neuropsychology. Recent evidence in this domain teaches us that our brain has two parts: a reflective and rational route – which is involved when we are really „thinking‟ – and an automatic route – which makes very quick effortless decisions based on past behaviour and the emotional evaluation of past actions (LeDoux, 1996). Through quantitative research, we

question the rational part whereas in order to get a thorough emotional measure, we should connect to the emotional brain. One way to do so is through the dual-task methodology (Gilbert, 1989; Pashler, 1998; Baddeley, 2000), a technique from cognitive psychology. While indicating all emotions they experienced with a certain concept, participants were asked to remember a set of symbols shown prior to the emotional measurement.

Previous research (Kahneman, 2003) has shown that this cognitive load will put more pressure on the rational part of the brain and will therefore allow participants to answer with their emotional brain. In a neuropsychological technique we asked participants to indicate their emotion per concept under time pressure. Bargh (1997) and LeDoux (2000) reported that the emotional route in the brain is much faster than the rational route; by limiting the response time to milliseconds, one can avoid giving the rational brain the time to answer.

A third technique was not based on neuropsychology, but again on tapping into projective techniques

where participants were asked to make a collage with pictures expressing their feeling towards a certain idea. With this last method, we wanted to see if we could apply a very common technique from qualitative research on a massive scale in quantitative research. All pictures were previously validated among a subset of 20 coders. Per emotion, we selected pictures that were uniquely identified as being part of one specific emotion. By doing so, we wanted to check if we could „quantify‟ the results at the end of the survey to their emotions.

We benchmarked the tree alternative emotional measurements with also the traditional quantitative measurement where we asked consumer directly to indicate which emotion they felt in a predefined list.

Also, during the idea and concept development community, we presented the same ideas to consumers and probed for emotional reactions.

This allowed us also to compare the results obtained by a quantitative method with those from the qualitative method.

The results showed that measurement of emotions is definitely not only restricted to qualitative

research. Including emotional and implicit measures in quantitative testing can help us detect emotional differences between groups and may help us complete the picture that we obtain qualitatively. It also helps us reveal emotions that consumers may not be aware of or that consumers find hard to admit.

In conclusion, qualitative researchers should embrace quantitative methods. Analysing qualitative results with a quantitative mind-set can help prioritize findings and compare them between different groups.

Moreover, quantitative plug-ins can help us reveal emotional (and social desirable) differences which can be difficult to admit in the social setting of an MROC.

Crossing the boundary of professions

Changing role of researchers We should leave our ivory towers as researchers by learning from related disciplines, like strategic consultancy and advertising. Current presentations and materials produced by researchers fall far short of the mark. As a result, research buyers are currently still

dissatisfied with the impact that research has on their business with one in ten verbal presentations and as many as one in seven written documents evoke discontent (Langer and Banks, 2011). Clients do not want a simple presentation of results and surface findings which are superficial, linear and one-dimensional, but demand a much higher level of consulting which assumes deeper analysis, non-linear and multi-dimensional assessments of the respondents (Alioto, 2007). Davison (2011) is also acknowledging the lack of research output in driving change and motivates researchers to know, understand and talk to their audience. “Clients are consumers too and they are confronted daily with slick forms of information daily on the Internet”.

Figure 7: Illustration of how we crossed the boundary of professions

Qualitative researchers tend to be better storytellers and, critically, are better at structuring their stories than their quantitative counterparts, perhaps because they don‟t have a wealth of statistics to fall back on and have to put more of “themselves” into their stories, according to the experience of Langer and Banks (2011).

Therefore they are the ideal partner to take the lead in setting new communication standards for the market research industry. The storytelling approach is not only applicable to qualitative data, but can also inspire our quantitative counterparts to be more creative and generate more impact. In the transfer co-creation of Air France and KLM, we did not only focus on our role as consultants by organizing internal workshops, we also advertised the research results during the project.

Although only 4 consumer-generated concepts made it to the final phase of Validation, the other 28 transfer concepts also expressed answers to relevant consumer needs.

Therefore all consumer-generated concepts were

integrated in a Deck of Idea cards, providing Air France and KLM with a playful way to review and apply the findings. Although it may not be feasible to implement them in the short term, the Customer Insight team and the R&D Customer Ground Experience team of Air France and KLM will start every meeting on the project by discussing one of these cards, its potential and the implications on existing services and communication. The Deck of Idea cards embodies the afterlife of this project and is a trigger referring to the other deliverables.

Figure 8: Deck of Idea cards

Although the research methodology is already moving beyond the boundaries of time and the deliverables of the research can make a lasting impression, there‟s a role for researchers to think along with clients

in translating findings into implementation in the business. As we started the project with an intensive workshop to create a knowledge map, we also organized a workshop after each phase to move from „insight‟ to action and define the next steps.

1

Workshop after insightment The results of the insightment were not only highlighted in a presentation where we indicated how our research had added to what was already known, we also took advantage of the power of creative techniques in an Immersion and ideation workshop. All insights were presented in an Insight museum – the walls of the workshop room were covered with insight platforms, consumer quotes and pictures – allowing marketeers to discover the consumer stories behind a certain insight themselves. Through various projective techniques like the Brand alphabet (Coming up with solutions as if we were another brand, e.g. Google or IKEA) or the Crazy round (Losing all sense of reality to come up with the perfect solution), people were probed to come up with actions and new product ideas based on the insights.

2

Workshop after ideation & concept development A successful concept needs to fit both the strategy and objectives of Air France and KLM and the needs of consumers. During a Concept selection workshop the most popular consumer-generated concepts were reviewed with these factors in mind, resulting in the composition of 4 concepts to move forward with to the next phase.

3

Workshop after quantitative validation To generate true impact and surprise with the results from the quantitative and emotional validation, we didn‟t just present the results, but we organised a Concept casino, requiring all the attention of the Customer Insight team and the R&D Customer Ground Experience team and providing them with a positive disruption. Each member of the teams received a number of poker chips. By presenting the scores of the different concepts for one KPI at a time, they could place their bet on the concept scoring the highest on unprized buying intention, for example. Not only did this stimulate a competitive, informal and creative atmosphere, it was also impactful in translating the results to a rewrite of the final concepts.

Figure 9: Concept casino

Changing role of consumers In challenging the boundaries of our professions, there are opportunities to reach out and also to redefine the role of consumers in research and innovation. Business success is contingent upon the adoption of innovations, new products, services, processes and ideas. In turn this is dependent upon consumers‟ acceptance and perceptions of an innovation. Traditionally, the consumer is treated as a „passive‟ player in this process, mainly because consumers are often relegated to the role of „validator‟ through traditional methods of consumer inquiry (Roberts et al, 2005). Following the emerging view (Prahalad & Ramaswamy, 2000 & Van Belleghem, 2012) that organisations should extend their search for competencies by co-opting consumer competence as a competitive strategy, our frequent flyers were challenged to take up the role as researcher and innovator in this project.

We gave up our expert status by involving consumers to take part in the analysis of the research results through crowd interpretation.

The crowd interpretation takes place in a game embedded in the insightment community. Participants are presented with the transfer stories from their peers and are asked to analyse them with the research questions in mind. For this study, we challenged the transfer passenger to detect new needs and frictions in the consumer stories of the other participants. After the analysis, the original contributor of the post could judge the interpretation and provide additional feedback. Previous research (Verhaeghe et al, 2011) has taught us that applying crowd interpretation leads to 20%-40% of additional insights. In the case of this study, involving consumers as research lead to an extra 21% of additional insights from the same data.

And that‟s not all! In addition to reaching out to research participants to improve our analysis in the first phase, we also involved consumers in taking research to the next stage by using

it as the starting point for an ideation journey. 46 frequent flyers joined a 3-week Ideation & Concept Development community; half of them were selected based on their innovator profile – challenging the norm and in search of what is unique and original – combining a focus on functional benefits with social independence. The other half were influential – accepting the norm and in search of what is relevant – being team players with a focus on social benefits. These two target groups collaborate on concepts which are both new and relevant (Van Belleghem and De Ruyck, 2012).

Figure 10: Ideation tool

Although gamification is already fully embedded in online research communities (De Ruyck and Veris, 2011), we took it to the next level by addressing the participants‟ collaborative spirit. Instead of attributing rewards to a participant or community level, based on the achievements, each and every idea initiated by one of our frequent flyers received a status. By commenting on the idea, participants were challenged to improve it and up the its status from mining, rough diamond, cut diamond to diamond ring! As a reward, the most feasible ideas with the highest status were visualised by one of the industrial designers in the project team.

Figure 11: Example of a concept board visual

Conclusion

The goal of our quest to cross the boundaries of our qualitative research is to increase the business impact of research. We moved beyond

There are two business implications we can already share, while other exciting innovations are still pending. One of the final concepts which

the boundaries of time by digging into the past upon the start of the research project. By taking advantage of the longitudinal nature of research communities we were able to create an impact not only more rapidly but also in a better way. We went

made it to the final phase, the Mobile transfer application, is currently being investigated by Air France and KLM based on the insights and ideas of their frequent travellers. Since even travellers with a lot of

beyond the boundaries of methods by analysing our data with a quantitative mindset and by taking advantage of (new) ways of measuring emotions implicitly. We left the boundaries of our profession behind by using best practices of related disciplines like advertisement or journalism in the presentation of our results.

Moreover, we welcomed consumers as co-

researchers, allowing us to get more out of the same data.

experience are looking for more control on their transfer process, several minor improvements will be carried out, like a new in-flight transfer video anticipating the information needs of transfer passengers. In addition to the final propositions and the 28 other consumer-generated ideas, the formulated guidelines on how to approach the transfer journey of frequent travellers will be the starting point for many other new initiatives in the future.

In times where researchers are challenged to do more with less, qualitative researchers can take full advantage of their skills by crossing the boundaries of their discipline.

Qualitative researchers can further develop their skills and apply them not only to interact with participants, but also to create more impact towards clients. There is a need however to broaden

The examples provided in this paper don‟t have the ambition to provide a complete answer to the barriers we‟re currently facing, but are designed to be a source of inspiration in order to trigger other researchers to think outside the box. Every research project has the potential to reset the boundary of time, methods or professions.

these skills; from advertising research results to providing consulting to take research from „insight‟ to action. We should familiarize qualitative research

with quantitative techniques. On the other hand, we also need to let go and reach out to empowered participants who are willing and able to add value to our analysis phase. With this change in expectations, the profession of qualitative researcher becomes an option for people with a background as varied as industrial design and general management. The composition of multidisciplinary teams will not only fuel the cross fertilization of skills, it has the power to bring projects to the next level and do more with less.

Acknowledgement

The authors would like to thank Bas de Luij (project manager of the Insightment phase), Renée Van Dalen (community manager of the Ideation & concept development community), Rosa Cruells (for analysing the Quantitative validation), Thom Rommens (for analysing and comparing the emotional measures) and the other InSites Consulting employees who contributed to the success of this project. Special thanks to Mike Friedman, Assistant Professor of Marketing at Université Catholique de Louvain for sharing his expertise on emotional measurement and last but not least to the complete Customer Insight team and the R&D Customer Ground Experience team of Air France and KLM for their enthusiasm and passion for taking this project forward.

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Revised and expanded 2nd edition.

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Research team

Tom De Ruyck

Thomas Troch

Annelies Verhaeghe

+32 9 269 14 07

+32 9 269 12 26

+32 9 269 14 06

tom@insites-consulting.com

thomas@insites-consulting.com

annelies@insites-consulting.com

@tomderuyck

@thomastroch

@annaliezze

http://www.linkedin.com/in/ thomastroch

http://www.linkedin.com/in/ anneliesverhaeghe

http://www.linkedin.com/in/ tomderuyck

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