AN INTERNATIONAL MARKETING RESEARCH CHECKLIST (*)

Checklists help with major undertakings such as moving across county or preparing for a long vacation. A checklist could be equally helpful for a global marketing research project. This article provides a checklist for such an endeavor.

Have you ever moved across the country with a professional moving company, or taken a long vacation and consulted with AAA or a travel agent? Often, these organizations will give you a checklist to insure success in such a major undertaking.

Well, guess what? A global marketing research project is also a major undertaking! So why hasn’t someone put together a checklist to help marketing researchers and other professionals navigate the rough seas that can threaten the validity and actionability of these projects?

Below please find your checklist, which can be copied for your convenient use and that of your colleagues.

I have written this list from the point-of-view of a researcher who may plan either to use a coordinating marketing research firm or to directly field a study in international markets. In either case, the issues and concerns in the checklist are the same.

General

• Does the local in-market research firm being used to field your study have 10 or more years of experience in fielding research in each country they are responsible for (or, at least six years in markets that weren’t open until ’90—’91, such as Eastern Europe), so that a strong understanding of local cultural variables and appropriate study design is available?
• Has the questionnaire/discussion guide been translated to the local language by personnel who currently speak the local language day-to-day, and who are therefore up-to-date on current meanings, usages and slang, etc.?
• Has the local language questionnaire/discussion guide version been back-translated to English, again by personnel who are current speakers of the local language and English?
• Is your study benefiting from consulting help from your local in-market research firms at the stages of determining local study methodology, questionnaire/discussion guide design, and again during analysis of results?
• Is your study being fielded by local companies that have the correct level of expertise for the study at hand and who have sufficient experience and caring to brief and monitor fieldwork, and to validate the results of the interviewing?
• Have you arranged for translation of briefing materials, respondent stimuli (including any videotapes), etc., into the appropriate local languages? In addition, have you ascertained the appropriate format for any videotaped stimuli (i.e., PAL, NTSC, etc.)?
• If there are study requirements that include the need for certain water temperatures or for amounts of different items such as in a recipe, are these requirements expressed in understandable terms for all countries included in the study (i.e., Fahrenheit versus Celsius, metric versus English measurements, etc.)?
• If a certain study has requirements for electrical equipment, such as a particular computer or an appliance that must be demonstrated, have you determined that appropriate electrical adapters are available so that the equipment can be used in each country?
• Have you checked for recent major weather or other events, such as the large forest fires in Mexico and Indonesia which caused smoke to travel over vast areas of surrounding countries? These events could have a major impact on planned research, especially research that depends on sensory perceptions of taste and smell.
• Have you checked for possible political issues with respect to conducting research in each country? As an example, Indonesia places a moratorium on conducting polling or marketing research three months prior to a national election. Such local regulations may affect your ability to deliver research results on time.
• Have you allowed for possible lengthy delays in customs for certain types of product in certain countries? Again, this can cause major problems in conducting work on time.

Quantitative

• Have you dealt with the actual fielding of the study within each country in terms of the cities that are selected, and assured that each cell of the study is receiving the identical geographic spread within each country (across cities, etc.)?
• If you are conducting a multi-country study, are editing, coding, data entry, and data tabulation functions centralized with consistent decision-making and oversight?
• If you are conducting a multi-country study, have you designed the questionnaire so that different brand lists can be fielded in each country, and so that identical brands can be easily identified and tabulated across all countries where they are found?
• If you plan to view the results of your multi-country study in total, have you assessed the need for the cross-calibration of any scalar data, so that results are able to be combined and analyzed across cultures?
• Have you considered the need to create more than one questionnaire per country, depending on the number of regional dialects or even indigenous languages that may exist?
• Do not automatically assume that a CATI telephone study as it is fielded in the U.S. is also the appropriate method for international markets. You very likely will need to go to door-to-door interviewing or some other type of face-to-face approach, such as hall interviewing with street intercepts. Here is where local consulting advice is critical in getting the job done right.

Qualitative

• Have you secured moderators in each country that have the appropriate language and cultural fit to relate well to respondents and elicit their feedback?
• If personnel are attending who do not speak the local language, have you arranged for simultaneous translation? Have you also arranged for audiotaping of the simultaneous translation, along with videotaping of the interviewing?
• Although you may be used to using one moderator across all cities in the U.S., have you checked for the need to use different moderators within the same country in international markets, due to different cultural situations and languages/regional dialects?
• If you or your colleagues do not attend qualitative work internationally, have you arranged for transcripts of the interviewing to be created and translated to English? And, have you arranged for these English transcripts to be sent to you electronically?
• Have you arranged for briefing of all moderators, either in-person or via long-distance conference call, depending on whether you are traveling to the interviewing sites?
• Have you determined if a viewing room with a one-way mirror is available, or whether a video set-up is available for observing the interviewing?

It is important to review all of these issues when coordinating international/global marketing research studies. Others may arise that have not been included here. If so, I would be very happy to hear about them. Meanwhile, enjoy the opportunities global/international work can provide - and may you do so as successfully as possible.

By Kent Hamilton

Vice president/Director of international services at A&G Research, Inc., New York.

(*) This article was originally published in November 1998 by Quirk’s Marketing Research Review. (Article ID:19981109)