by Although not a new concept, deprivation-based research hasn’t received much attention in qualitative MR. So when Conifer’s Sasha McCune proposed a talk on this for the upcoming QUAL360 NORTH AMERICA 2019 conference, the judges quickly accepted her submission. In the run up to the conference we asked Sasha to share her thoughts on the topic and upcoming conference.
Sasha McCune, Director of Design at Conifer Research describes deprivation-based research as a tool that presents you withtheopportunity to turn your own methods and approaches on their heads inorder to get insights in a new way. Instead of studying something, you are doing the reverse – examining the absence – exploring alternatives and discovering within the negative space. Invert everything, and innovation will follow.
The method allows you to put the age-old “if you love something, let it go” wisdom to the test as a means to uncover tacit needs. Sasha loves inspiring people to think in new ways – and Deprivation is a wonderful tool for that. It is also a fun topic since it is so relatable yet underutilized in research.
She says: “The conventional wisdom around “Deprivation” permeates our culture and clues about what there is to learn from going without. You’ll find it everywhere in the subtext of daily life… it’s in idioms, songs, ancient proverbs, embedded in religious rituals and personal rituals, fad diets and fasting, and even in #FOMO.”
At QUAL360 NORTH AMERICA 2019,Sasha will share practical tips on how to best leverage these methods, learnings from using this approach, and how thoughtful contextual experiments can help innovation teams expedite learning and forge paths ahead.
Sasha was motivated to join QUAL360 North America 2019 because for her, conferences are a opportunity to come together and set aside “the grind” – even if just for a short time! Every year things move so fast in the day-to-day – slowing down and carving out dedicated thinking, learning and sharing time that is not attached to a business goal or project demand is such a gift for everyone.
Commenting on the power of digital, Sasha believes that, “the amazing tools available to qualitative researchers are now finally not a compromise in our best practices. Ten plus years ago when digital tools started really making a splash, using these tools as a qualitative researcher felt like we were regressing or being forced into a quantitative box or having to sacrifice quality. Today’s tools have come leaps and bounds!”
Sasha will be joined by key speakers from leading global and regional brands as well as research agencies including Expedia, Bank of America, Hanes Brands, Turner, Wall Street Journal, Dow Jones, TH Foods, McCormick & Company, Kantar, Gallup, Jigsaw and many more. Join us to uncover innovative, new methods to delivering authentic insights.
