Looking for Trouble Incidental Findings #1 by T.H. Kern Oil Painting from "Sounds of Jazz" by Roman Nogin If you ever want a four-minute master class in qualitative data analysis, I suggest trying John Lee Hooker. Specifically, 1966’s “Peace Lovin’ Man.” It doesn’t matter if you hate listening to the blues. If you don’t fancy his riveting turn (“Boom Boom”) in The Blues Brothers, that’s fine as well—I’m not here to convert you. This blues legend from Mississippi (1917-2001) was never keen on winning favor. But he does have a useful, and even timeless, lesson for market researchers. It’s hiding in plain sight. On first listen, “Peace Lovin’ Man” seems like nothing. The band is an electric blues quartet, a lean one. The drummer has a kick drum, a snare, and a tambourine. It’s a slow, propulsive rhythm, embroidered by guitars and bass that mesh in a sound that feels crowded and roomy at the same time. Dum duh DUM, Dum duh DUM, Dum duh DUM. A plodding and relentless beat. Right from the jump, the song’s narrator has a message to deliver. On the surface, it’s a strange one: I’m a peace-loving man I don’t want trouble I’m a peace-loving man I don’t want trouble baby I better go now babe I don’t wanna get in trouble We don’t know exactly where he is, other than some place he probably shouldn’t be. We don’t know who he has come to see; there’s no backstory. And we don’t really know exactly what he is after, but we can tell it’s something somebody doesn’t want him to have right now, or possibly ever. What we do know for damn sure is that, whatever it is, he really wants it. The sense of impending doom is palpable, despite his use of the deliciously vague term “trouble.” Make no mistake—this guy sees it and he smells it. He knows it’s real. I see trouble baby Way up yonder ahead of me I better go now baby I smell trouble For all this talk, however, the guy does not budge. He just keeps telling the woman (and telling her and telling her), I’m not here to make trouble. So what exactly is going on here? The first few times I listened to Hooker’s Real Folk Blues in my college apartment, I found “Peace Lovin’ Man” a bit of a chore to sit through. Its numbing repetitions struck me as overkill, and inside my mind (possibly aloud), I may even have shouted at the stereo, “So leave already! You’re not gonna get what you want!” Looking back, I may have been touchy due to sleep deprivation. But the guy does keep saying one thing over and over. If the song was a qualitative interview, any backroom client would have long ago sent a terse note in to the moderator: “Move on.” As it happens, I was missing the point—the biggest “E” on the eye chart. What this song taught me, over a period of years, was not to focus on the narrator’s words alone. The key takeaway here is not what he says. It’s that he continues to stick around, all those perils be damned. He says one thing. But he does something else. This matters in market research because observing what people do (or how they do it) tells you more than what they say. The narrator of “Peace Lovin’ Man” doesn’t have a whole lot to say as such, and Lord knows, he says it over and over again. But what he says (this fella isn’t seeking trouble) is directly at odds with what he does (sticking around). In market research, this qualifies as a finding. Allowing respondents to demonstrate their feelings, rather than merely state them, seems to be one of those cardinal rules that everybody knows but nobody practices. There are, of course, many reasons to give disproportionate weight to a respondent’s literal utterances in a market research interview. And it seems logical, kind of, to assume that people do what they say they do. But give them a chance to do something, not just describe it, and they will nearly always show you something more—and often quite different. To some extent, online bulletin boards and ethnographic studies (or even standard interviews with a “homework” task) can help meet the need for more “evidentiary” data collection. In pharmaceutical companies, marketing teams often have a cerebral/rational bent that dismisses tasks they don’t deem sufficiently “scientific.” That’s their loss, and their data’s loss. Ultimately, all the brands they support stand to lose some competitive edge as well. So the next time you hear an oncologist say, “I only care about data,” or an internist say, “I never look at journal ads,” think about putting their statements to the test. Armature Group specializes in developing methods that force respondents to reveal behavior patterns rather than just state opinions to accept as gospel. After all, talk is cheap. T.H Kern is Executive Vice President at Armature Group, a healthcare market research consultancy based in Wynnewood, PA. He can be reached via thomas.kern@armaturegroup.net John Lee Hooker, “Peace Lovin’ Man” (1966) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=di6Tsbpysno From The Real Folk Blues All Rights Reserved Bonus Beats: John Lee Hooker, “Boom Boom” https://youtu.be/nUUyFrHERpU From the Universal picture The Blues Brothers Directed by John Landis All Rights Reserved
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