by Dow Jones wanted to address the gender imbalance that existed in its subscriber base, particularly for its two membership businesses WSJ & Barron’s. To do so, they launched a research initiative entitled Project Artemis which consisted of a three-step research process; first a review of existing data, secondly qualitative one-to-one interviews with 36 current, lapsed and prospective readers for the titles, and finally a quantitative stage. The research unearthed what the drivers and barriers were for women who engage with or may in the future engage with its brands.
In the project, Donna Zeolla, Research Manager of WSJ – Dow Jones and Rupert Thurlow, Customer Intelligence Manager of DJMG – Dow Jones placed qualitative work at the core of every stage, to ensure that they did not fall prey to the mistake of just metrics tracking. The team recently completed the last stage of the research and are currently rolling out the findings across the business.
The findings reflected 3 principles as a result of the research which are:- to demonstrate the brand’s commitment to women, to tell stories as if women are already their readers and to plan their product for their future audience as well as present. These principles emerged from the qual phase of the research and all subsequent research reinforced them.
According to Zeolla, businesses are increasingly looking for justification of the time and expense invested into qual work.Her presentation at QUAL360 NORTH AMERICA 2019,reviews the above project and will provide some useful tips for fellow researchers on how to demonstrate the value Qual can bring to the table. “How qual can help media brands engage with women in an increasingly turbulent period” will be presented together with her colleague, Rupert Thurlow from DJMG.
For Thurlow, conferences like QUAL360 NORTH AMERICA 2019 are valuable platforms to educate and inspire research professionals to use various types of qualitative research in their projects. Especially since the Qual360 series has become an invaluable resource for ideating and learning best practices for future studies.
Donna Zeolla believes that today’s market researchers are fortunate that there are now so many tools available. At the same time researchers must embrace these technologies by gaining an understanding which tool is the right one for each research task. QUAL360 NORTH AMERICA 2019 will be a great platform for sharing and discussing the trends and technologies in qualitative research.
Join Rupert and Donna together with an exclusive speaker panel from Expedia, Bank of America, Pinterest, McCormick & Company, Hanes Brands, Turner, TH Foods, Altria and many more to shape the future of qualitative research at Qual360 North America.
